


The House Wins

by provocation



Category: Ocean's Eleven Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Caper Fic, Heist, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 02:38:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18730045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/provocation/pseuds/provocation
Summary: “You don’t know who you are.”“I know some things,” Rusty protests. “I know my name is Rusty Ryan. I know I work as a hotel owner, and that I got in an accident last week on vacation.”Danny lifts one finger. “You weren’t on vacation.” Two. “It wasn’t an accident.” Three. “You don’t run hotels for a living.” Four, and Rusty’s eyebrows shoot up before he even says it, “And your real name is sure as hell not Rusty Ryan.”Set after canon. After he is thrown down a mountain and hit by a train, Rusty survives but loses all his long-term memory. Danny helps him remember.





	The House Wins

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: alcohol usage, brief recreational drug usage and smoking, (temporary) hospitalization, inaccurate portrayal of a medical condition (retrograde & lacunar amnesia), non-descript sex, CRIMES.
> 
> The title comes from the OK Go song, which has some relevant lyrics and themes. There are tons of references peppered throughout this; I'm going to leave most of them up to you the reader to find! (This fic is also a love letter to the Ocean's fandom, and there's a couple references to my favourite stories. I know I'm twelve (eighteen?) years late to the party but I hope someone will appreciate this.) It is important for me to note that _Gambit_ is real; the remake is the worst movie the Coen brothers have ever written. Please watch it. This fic is mostly a venue for me to trick as many people into watching that horrible movie as possible.
> 
> Finally, I owe this fic to [Nicola](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somekindofsomething), both because I promised it to them last year (oops) and because they have been such a wonderful motivator during the entire writing process. Thank you for sitting in that tiny Montreal bar with me and poring over this story when we probably should have been doing cool young adult things.

When Danny finally gets into the hospital room, he can’t believe his eyes. They warned him but it’s so much worse than he expected. “Jesus Christ,” is all he can think to say. The nurse throws a sharp look at him over her shoulder, but Danny doesn’t apologize for his blasphemy. He can’t believe his eyes but he can’t look away either, gaze pinned to the nearly-skeletal figure. “Jesus Christ.”

“Are you his,” the nurse starts to ask, faltering halfway through her question because it’s unclear if her patient is still alive, let alone survived by any friends or family. “Do you know him?”

“No,” Danny says without thinking because Rusty is unrecognizable, and then “yes,” and then he turns on his heel and throws up into the nearest waste bin.

 

 

Three minutes later Reuben is rubbing his shoulders as a concerned nurse checks his vital signs. “He’s fine,” Turk says to the nurse. “We’re all just worried for our friend.”

Danny nods distractedly, chin bobbing up and down. He can’t shake the image of Rusty lying in bed, head shaved bald and body wrapped up in tape. He looked thinner than Danny has ever seen him, and the white bandages on his face and skull were nearly the same colour as his skin. Danny’s hands twitch with the insane urge to run back inside Rusty’s room and open the curtains wide just so he can start to get some of his beloved tan back.

“If it helps,” the nurse consoles Turk, “your friend’s condition is already improving a lot. He looked worse when we brought him in.”

Livingston gulps. “Worse? Than that?”

Saul nods sourly. He, Yen and Reuben had been the first to come in and check on Rusty; the rest flew in as fast as they could. Danny was the last to arrive, and although he knows he should have come sooner he feels selfishly glad he was out of reach. If Rusty looks this bad after a week in the hospital, Danny doesn’t know if he could have handled seeing the immediate aftermath.

“At least he can hold down food now.” The first nurse exits Rusty’s room holding a suspicious garbage bag, and Danny avoids eye contact. “And his concussion is already getting better; he can remember basic facts about current events.”

“But not because he knows them,” Virgil notes. He’s wearing scrubs; it’s unclear if he’s working a con at this hospital or if he’s just always got a costume on hand. “Just when we tell him.”

“That’s why your friends insisted you fly in,” the nurse tells Danny. “They told us you might be able to jog Rusty’s memories.”

Reuben’s hands freeze on Danny’s upper back, and suddenly everyone’s eyes are on him. Danny’s pulse is still pounding as he thinks about the malnourished, beat-up man who used to be his friend, but he forces himself to focus on bolstering the team— and the nervous nurse. “I’ll try my best,” he says, and watches as ten people all exhale with relief. “Just… let’s wait until he wakes up.”

 

 

Three hours later a friendly doctor steps into Danny’s field of vision, waving a polite hand to announce their arrival. The announcement that Rusty is awake is also friendly and polite, and it’s all Danny can do not to mock the optimistic.

“Thanks,” he manages, and the beaming doctor leaves to go deliver other good news to more receptive audiences. Linus has fallen asleep in his seat, head resting on the hard cushion of Danny’s left shoulder while Yen leans on his right. Danny softly pats Yen’s hand until the acrobat wakes up with a jolt, raising his head quickly. The guilt in his expression suggests that he knows Danny’s suit is Armani, but the smirk when he sees Linus means that he knows Danny doesn’t give a shit if his shoulders are wrinkled. Rusty and Tess are the only ones who would ever care about something like that.

“Linus, wake up,” Danny commands loudly, hiding his own amusement. “You’re wrinkling my suit.”

Yen cackles as Linus nearly falls out of his chair, and Danny catches a smile tugging at Basher’s lips. _Good;_ Danny will do whatever it takes to get his team back to normal, even if that means putting up with optimistic doctors, bullying Linus, or teaching his best friend to remember who he is.

Over the phone everyone warned him how bad Rusty looked, but Danny had ignored his team’s warnings in an impulsive bout of eagerness and panic. Before he walks back into the hospital room the second time, Danny has to remind himself of the other thing everyone warned him about: that Rusty apparently doesn’t remember a single thing about his life or identity. He doesn’t remember his own name, or any of his friends’ names, which means he sure as hell doesn’t remember Danny.

Danny sucks his cheek between his teeth and bites down on it hard as he opens the door, but the sick feeling he got the first time around is nowhere to be found. Rusty is still too pale and too thin, looking more like a ghost than the man Danny knows. His bed is elevated now so he can sit up, and his bruised eyes are open as he eats apple slices.

At the sound of the door opening Rusty looks up, and Danny can see how bad the bruising really is. It’s a wonder he lived, let alone that he’s able to feed himself shitty hospital food. Danny realizes he hasn’t breathed since he opened the door. He gulps air down nervously as Rusty swallows his mouthful of apple, and they both stare at each other for an extended awkward pause.

“Hi,” Danny finally chokes out before his cowardly body can turn and run out of the room and catch the next flight out of town, to avoid looking at the strange ghost before him any longer. “Hello, Rusty.”

Rusty blinks, and for a wonderful instant Danny thinks everything must be flooding back to him. “Hello,” he answers, cautious but curious. “Are you Daniel Ocean?”

“That’s me,” Daniel Ocean hears himself say, voice suddenly as weak as his knees feel. He walks over to the chair beside Rusty’s bed, collapsing into it gracelessly. “That’s me. Yeah. Do you… do you remember me?”

Rusty stares at him, taking in the sight of his face. “No,” he decides, looking apologetic. “But they told me you were coming. Reuben and the others.”

“Right.” Danny stares, moving his hands erratically and helplessly around his knees and lap. “Right.”

“Sorry,” Rusty offers, although it’s clear he knows it’s not his fault.

“It’s not your fault,” Danny offers back, although it’s clear Rusty knows that. They stare at each other silently until Rusty breaks, blinking twice. Danny swallows down the impulse to jump into Rusty’s hospital bed and shake him silly until he admits that this is a joke, or better yet, a job. That this is just the part of the heist where they need to fake Rusty’s amnesia, so they spread the fake news that he got thrown in front of a train. Instead of torturing Rusty to give up his charade, Danny sinks into his chair. “You look like shit.”

“Wow, thanks,” Rusty’s reply is sardonic and sharp, just like normal. It’s equally comforting and heartbreaking. “We must be close.”

“We are,” Danny grins. “Reuben didn’t tell you that we were close?”

“No,” Rusty laughs. “He didn’t warn me that you’d be so handsome either.”

Danny’s heart threatens to jump out his throat, and he suddenly feels exposed and raw. Rusty must see some of his emotion on his face because he looks intrigued, leaning forward. His hospital gown is rolled up more on one sleeve than the other, a fashion crime that the real Rusty Ryan would never commit accidentally.

“Is there something you’re not telling me, Ocean?” Rusty purrs, interrupting Danny’s thoughts like an axe interrupting a twig. “I don’t want to be too forward, but I’ve had a very rough week, so it would be a great high note to find out if at least one of my ten mysterious friends is actually more than a friend. How close is close?”

Danny considers lying, but the sultry smile on Rusty’s face is doing a poor job of disguising his earnest feelings hidden just beneath the question. “I’ve known you almost our whole lives,” he says instead. “You know me better than anyone else, you’re… we’re definitely more than friends. You have no idea what it’s like for me to see you like this.”

Overcome by obvious empathy, Rusty jokes, “I heard you puked.”

“I don’t mean that,” Danny tries to keep the sadness and fear out of his voice. “I mean… like this.” He reaches forward and fixes Rusty’s sleeve, rolling it to match. Rusty’s eyes are wide and desperate. “You don’t know who you are.”

“I know some things,” Rusty protests. “I know my name is Rusty Ryan. I know I work as a hotel owner, and that I got in an accident last week on vacation.”

Danny lifts one finger. “You weren’t on vacation.” Two. “It wasn’t an accident.” Three. “You don’t run hotels for a living.” Four, and Rusty’s eyebrows shoot up before he even says it, “And your real name is sure as hell not Rusty Ryan.”

“But my medical papers were…” Rusty drifts off as Danny leans in and whispers a name to him, and then he scowls. “That’s horrible.”

“I know.”

“Rusty’s almost better.”

“Almost.”

“But— I don’t understand, why would Reuben and the others lie to me? Aren’t they my friends too?”

“They are,” Danny quickly assuages. “They just don’t know your real name.”

The anxiety that Rusty has been obviously holding back for the whole conversation morphs into fear, and he demands, “What kind of friends don’t know a man’s real name?”

“You prefer Rusty,” Danny tells him. The answer seems to settle him. “And the kind of friends that met you through business, that’s what kind.”

“The same business that gets me thrown in front of trains?” Something clouds behind Rusty’s eyes, and he suddenly fixes Danny with a glum look, like he’s worried he already knows the answer. “Are we… what exact kind of business am I wrapped up in? Something bad?”

Déjà vu strikes Danny. He knows he should come clean to Rusty, and that it’s just going to complicate everything further if he lies. But there’s something pure and virginal about the worry on Rusty’s face, and the idea of outlining Rusty’s long laundry list of crimes is suddenly exhausting and out of the question.

So Danny shakes his head, and lies through his teeth: “No, what I meant to say is— you do, you do own hotels. What I meant to say is, you’re not just a hotel owner; you’re a _hotelier._ It’s what you’ve wanted your whole life.”

“Oh,” Rusty breathes out, deflating a little.

Danny watches him. “Sorry for scaring you, Robert.”

“It’s fine,” Rusty says. His eyes meet Danny’s again. “I… I prefer Rusty.”

 

 

The closest convenience store to the Holiday Inn he’s staying at is open twenty-four hours, so there might be a God after all. The store is empty save the tired clerk behind the counter who barely lifts their head to acknowledge his presence. Instinctively Danny heads straight for the chips aisle, and by the time he realizes that Rusty isn’t waiting back in the motel room he’s already got a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos under his arm.

Danny trades the chips for a bag of microwave popcorn, and double-checks that the clerk isn’t looking before sliding a candy bar into his pocket. The petty theft does nothing for him— his toes don’t curl, his heart doesn’t race. He just feels horrendously old.

When he walks up to pay the clerk still isn’t looking, and Danny’s back starts to ache. He reaches for the candy bar, placing it down beside the bag of chips, and even this doesn’t trigger any sort of reaction. Danny wonders if the cashier is actually a corpse that someone propped up behind the counter so that people like him wouldn’t steal Mars bars.

“Is that everything?” the cashier drones without lifting their head, and Danny nearly shits himself.

“No!” he says too loudly. The cashier finally raises their chin, revealing emotionless eyes and a nametag labelled Erika. “No, and a pack of Camels, please. King-sized. And—” Danny reaches for a blue lighter.

Erika blinks twice. “Do you have ID?”

Danny drops the lighter in surprise, and when he bends over to pick it up there’s an unpleasant twinge at the bottom of his spine. “Do I— Do I have _ID?”_

“Photo ID.”

“I’m _forty-six_.”

“I would have guessed fifty-seven.”

The bell above the door rings and a couple enters, excitedly chattering as they make a beeline for the ATM. Danny thinks he might commit a second-degree robbery or burst into tears if he doesn’t leave this store in the next sixty seconds, so he reaches into his wallet and grabs the first ID card he finds, shoving it at the cashier.

Erika barely examines the picture, just squinting at the date of birth before nodding and handing it back. They ring Danny’s items through and throw everything, including the cigarettes, into a plastic bag covered in yellow smiley faces. “Have a good night, Mr. Dell.”

“You too,” Danny shrieks, dialing Tess before he’s even out the door.

The good thing about staying close with your ex-wife is that you always have at least one phone number memorized, for times of crisis when you need to call a best friend and interrupt her night. The great thing about Danny staying close with his ex-wife is that Tess is the best listener he knows. As much as she might tell him off, he knows he could tell her anything. Hell, he introduced her to François Toulour; you can only go up from there.

“Danny?” Tess’ voice comes over the receiver, and Danny lets out a breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding. She sounds sleepy, but not as annoyed as expected. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

An equally sleepy but more annoyed voice mutters in the background of the call, “Ask him if he knows what time it is.”

“I’m okay,” Danny replies, distantly aware of how high-pitched his voice sounds; he tries to remedy it but his usual suaveness and charm is hard to summon. “I’m okay. I just got asked for my ID. I haven’t been asked for my ID in twenty years; I know it’s their job, but it just seems rude is all. Oh, yeah, and Rusty got in an accident and he woke up and forgot who he is.”

“Oh my god,” Tess gasps. “Oh my god, Danny— is he okay?”

“He’s okay,” Danny says, struggling to light a cigarette. Thanks to the chilly evening breeze the flame goes out over and over again, leaving Danny cross-eyed staring at the half-lit butt. “He’s so… thin. I threw up when I first saw him, I couldn’t… I just couldn’t believe it.”

“I’m so sorry, Danny. Oh my god.”

There’s a muffled noise over the receiver, and then the stern background voice demands, “Ask him if he remembers who I am.”

“Did you ask about—”

“Tell your girlfriend I can hear her,” Danny interrupts, mildly amused. “And no, I… didn’t think to ask that. He doesn’t know who I am, so I figured he especially doesn’t know who you are. No offence, Isabel.”

“None taken.” Isabel’s voice softens slightly. “How long is he going to be in the hospital? Could we fly out and see him?”

“Doc said a week more, maybe two.” He finally succeeds and takes a long pull from the cigarette, but even nicotine doesn’t do much to calm his nerves. Premonition isn’t usually Danny’s strong suit but he has an unshakable hunch that later tonight he’ll be getting intimate with the nearest bottle of liquor. Very soon. As soon as he can. “But I’m not sure if there’s much of a point. He doesn’t know anything; it’s like talking to a different person. And as far as work goes he thinks he’s a hotelier.”

Isabel snorts as Tess grabs the phone back. “That’s great! Maybe he can use that as a second chance.”

“But it’s not real, it’s just what the others told him,” Danny gripes. “I could have told him he danced in the Cirque for a living and he’d believe me; he doesn’t know any better.”

“Maybe telling him about his criminal record will jog his memory,” Tess says. “Don’t look at me like that, Isabel. It could work. I saw a documentary where—”

“Daniel,” Isabel interrupts, and Danny has never been gladder to hear her nagging European voice. “It’s late here, but it’s later where you are. Go to sleep. Maybe Rusty will make great strides overnight, but you won’t help him at all by staying up and worrying.”

“Okay,” Danny closes his eyes, cutting the cigarette off against the nearest cement wall. “Okay. You’re right. I’ll get some sleep.”

“Love you,” Tess tells him. The ache of those words dissipated long ago and now they’re just nice to hear. Danny’s stress melts away for the moment, replaced by relief. “Night, Danny.”

The call ends before he can return her words, and suddenly the allure of room service and a freshly made hotel bed doesn’t feel like enough. Danny looks across the parking lot, gaze travelling down the street to where he knows Rusty is laid up in his hospital bed.

He wonders if Rusty’s awake too, and his fingers close around the candy bar in his pocket that starts to melt against his palm.

 

 

Rusty seems to make impossibly great strides overnight, as his first words the next morning to Danny are laced with enough stubborn irritation that it sounds like nothing ever happened to him at all. “Could you _please_ open the fucking curtains?”

Danny acquiesces, walking over to the window. He puts down the coffees on the bedside table and indicates the taller cup. “Latte’s yours,” he says, pulling the curtains wide open and cracking a window. Rusty still might be healing, but there’s no reason he can’t get a breath of fresh air. Or an expensive espresso drink. “Did they forget to tell you that your legs work?”

“My foot’s asleep,” Rusty glowers, which is an invalid excuse but is perfectly in-character, and Danny loves him for it. Then he adds, “Also, I got thrown in front of a train a week ago.”

“Ah,” Danny winces, and paces back to pick up his own drink. His Americano is as bitter and scalding as Rusty’s latte is sweet, just the way they like it. “So Reuben told you.”

“Frank told me,” Rusty says, arms crossed. “But I only thought to ask him because you told me, yesterday. What the hell, Ocean?”

“It’s Danny. Just Danny,” Danny corrects him, unable to control the knee-jerk reaction. It’s the first time he has ever heard Rusty address him by his last name. Rusty doesn’t look apologetic, only confused, so Danny moves on. “What else did Frank tell you?”

“He told me about the people who did it,” Rusty uncrosses his arms to reach for his latte, and once he sips it his face clears. “That it was a random attack and the police are still investigating motives… _wow_ , this is phenomenal. What’s in this?”

Danny makes a note to take Frank out for manicures. Not only did he stick to their cover story under pressure, he gave Rusty the best vague answer ever. Maybe even pedicures. “Coconut milk,” he returns his attention to Rusty. “So it’s sweet but you don’t have to add all that unhealthy syrup.”

Rusty examines the label. “This says it has five pumps of unhealthy syrup.”

“You always add five pumps of unhealthy syrup anyway.” Danny sits down next to the hospital bed, smiling into his Americano.

Rusty sips his coffee again, closing his eyes and smiling for a blissful quiet moment. Danny watches him, and when Rusty opens his eyes he doesn’t bother glancing away. He missed his best friend this past week more than words can say, and even though Rusty is still skinny and white as a straw, it’s refreshing to be in his presence.

That is, until Rusty fixes Danny with the same determined look he gave the label. “How do you know how I like my coffee?”

 _I know every single thing about you,_  Danny refrains from telling him. Instead he crosses his ankles, returning Rusty’s intense gaze. “I know a lot about you.”

Rusty leans forward in his seat as best he can. “I want to know more about you.”

“Sure,” Danny says easily, ignoring how his mouth is dry and his palms are sweaty. “Ask away.”

“How long have we known each other?”

“Thirty-four years,” Danny answers without hesitation. “Since I was twelve.”

“Wow,” Rusty mutters. “So it’s safe to say we get along?”

“We get along alright,” Danny shrugs, and then grins at the concern on Rusty’s face. “Yes, Rusty, we get along.”

“Huh. Are you married?”

Danny pulls out his phone, scrolling through the backlog of photos that mostly depict blueprints, interesting birds, and rooms set up for continuity. He finally lands on a picture of Tess and hands the phone over to Rusty, who takes it eagerly and stares at the photo. "Do you recognize her?”

After a long moment of thought Rusty shakes his head, looking disappointed in himself. “No.”

“That’s Tess.” Danny watches Rusty’s face carefully but there’s nothing, no recognition whatsoever. He can’t begin to count the number of nights spent joyriding around with Rusty and Tess, fudging local bylaws and getting up to no good. Rusty is the only person who has ever been allowed to call Tess Therese, _including_ Danny. They’ve shared thousands of hours together after Tess and Danny divorced the last time, and the three of them have had so many nights to remember. Except of course, Rusty can’t remember any of them. “We used to be together.”

Rusty snaps up to look at him and hope takes hold of Danny’s heart, but Rusty just raises an eyebrow and questions, “Used to?”

Something new (or very, very old) blooms in Danny’s heart and he coughs on his next words, unused to flirtation coming from _Rusty_. “Uh,” he says eloquently, reaching for his phone. His hand bumps against Rusty’s and Rusty grins wide. Danny tries to ignore it, scrolling to a picture of Isabel. “Maybe she’ll— okay, let’s try this. Do you know this woman?”

Rusty grabs the phone again, but this time his reaction is different. “Oh, I definitely recognize her,” he hums, holding the picture at a new angle. _"Z_ _orro,_ right?”

Danny flounders. “What?”

“Catherine something. She’s a movie star, right?”

“No, that’s your ex-girlfriend.” Danny stares at Rusty, then he stares at the picture. “You think Isabel looks like Catherine Zeta-Jones?”

Rusty blinks at the phone before turning to give Danny a blank look. “You don’t see the resemblance?”

 

 

“Danny. Danny, stop laughing, we can hardly understand what you’re saying.”

“He didn’t recognize you, Tess, but he thinks— Isabel— he thinks you look like— he thinks you look like—”

“Who, Daniel, spit it out!”

“He thought you were Catherine Zeta-Jones!”

“He…… _what?"_

“Oh, I kind of see it,” Tess answers mildly. Danny claps a hand over his mouth to stop laughing so hysterically, leaning against the wall outside Rusty’s room for support.

“I don’t suppose you thought to tell him that Tess and I are now together,” Isabel’s voice comes over the call, cold and stern.

“No, that’s next on the list,” Danny wheezes. “I’m sorry, Isabel, I guess I got distracted because, oh, you know, Rusty thought you were Hollywood actress _Catherine Zeta-Jones_ —”

The call drops and Danny has to take another five minutes to compose himself before re-entering the hospital room.

 

 

One week and four days after Rusty arrives at the hospital, a package addressed to him arrives at the front desk. The package looks innocent enough so the nurse brings it right to Rusty— fortunately Rusty has no means of opening it on his own. He flags Livingston down for a pair of scissors.

Less than a minute later everyone is huddled around the package, crowding Rusty’s hospital room. Livingston’s panicked expression matches the nervousness Danny feels, although he would never let his nerves show so much. The foolhardy Malloy twin reaches forward and pokes the box, and everyone takes a sharp breath in except Rusty.

Nothing happens. They all exhale, and Virgil smacks Turk on the arm. “It could still be dangerous,” Linus says.

Livingston is clutching the bed frame like a lifesaver. “We should probably get it out of here instead of opening it then. Because this is a hospital and all.”

“What’s in the box?” Rusty demands. Nobody pays him any heed.

Basher scratches his head, asking, “How did he even find out where Rusty is? Has anyone been keeping in touch with him?”

Danny grimaces. “I may have told Tess.”

“Oh, you’re dead from the neck up,” Basher groans, which is plausibly a threat but probably just some eccentric insult. They’ve all picked up Mandarin but nobody has quite learned how to understand Basher yet.

“I’m gonna open it,” Turk says, puffing up his chest. Virgil rears back to slap him again but this time Turk manages to dodge the blow. “No point in standing around.”

“Be careful,” Linus says, moving the box further away from Rusty. Danny hides an entertained smile, and he doesn’t point out that protecting Rusty will accomplish virtually nothing. He already got thrown in front of a train; it’s not like his brain is going to get any foggier. “Let me hold it while you open it.”

“If it’s a bomb, we could only have a second to disarm it,” Basher reasons. “I’ll open it.”

“A bomb?” Rusty eyes the box with new trepidation. “Will someone please tell me who the hell Terry Benedict is, and why he would be sending a bomb to my hospital room?”

There’s genuine panic on Rusty’s face now so Danny reminds himself that this new virginal version of his best friend has never been in a high-stakes situation like this before. “Turk, Linus, Basher. Relax,” he orders in his best authoritative voice. (Reuben used to call it his Daddy Ocean voice, but Danny put an instant end to that.)

He crosses the room to stand beside the bed, fighting the urge to fix Rusty’s messy buzzcut. “Rus, it’s okay. Benedict probably didn’t send you a bomb— that’s not really his style. Besides, if he wanted to kill you, he could have just thrown you in front of a train and that would have done the trick.”

Rusty still looks panicked so Danny gives into his crazy impulse and reaches out to comb Rusty’s hair into place as best he can. This confuses and comforts Rusty in equal measure but it also distracts him from the bomb-unboxing next to his toes, so Danny lingers for a second before pulling his hand away. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “Benedict doesn’t want to kill you, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Yeah,” Rusty breathes out, hand balling up into a fist around his blankets. Some of the tension seeps out of his taut shoulders. “So who is he?”

“He’s an arrogant dick who we screwed over a couple years ago, and then he tried to screw us a couple years later,” Danny simplifies. “I don’t think he’d ever resort to sending you a bomb but a package from Benedict doesn’t mean anything good. He’s a cut-throat businessman who puts his faith in the wrong people and treats his friends like pawns—”

“Bath bombs,” Turk interrupts.

“What?” Train of thought derailed, Danny jerks his chin up to look at the box. Sure enough Turk is holding a bag of bombs in his hand, but they’re pastel baby blue bath bombs. Basher is holding a small, expensive-looking bottle of lotion, and Linus pulls out a bar of sea salt chocolate. “… _What?”_

“To Mr. Ryan,” Virgil reads from a handwritten postcard. On the other side is a photo that could nearly be a painting of a lush island with white stone houses and bright flora, surrounded by sparkling tropically blue water. “I heard about the train attack and your resulting condition. This might be karma for accepting such a dangerous job, but regardless I’m sorry to hear that you’re in such a bad state. Please accept this care package—”

_“What?!”_

“—that my secretary put together—”

“Oh, that makes more sense,” Linus says.

“And once you’re out of the hospital you are welcome to visit my new island hotel,” Virgil continues reading, eyes bugging out of his head. “The healing properties of the Mediterranean ocean and good company might help you remember who you are. Dude, I think he wants to marry you.”

“He sure sounds like a dick,” Rusty says, examining the bottle of lotion. There’s a twinkle in his eye suggesting that even though he’s forgotten his entire life, he still remembers how to yank Danny’s chain. “Nothing says cut-throat like a care package with soap that contains aloe vera, water lily, licorice, and pearl. Pearl, Danny. Real pearl.”

“It’s probably poisonous,” Danny can’t resist grumbling but it’s too late; everyone else has already dug into Rusty’s care package. Even Livingston is nibbling on the corner of a gourmet candy bar, anxiety apparently abandoned at the prospect of chocolate. “Hey, he sent this stuff to Rusty, not you assholes. He still hates the rest of us.”

“Not as much as he hates you probably,” Virgil replies. “You were the ringleader. Look, right here at the bottom: Daniel Ocean is NOT invited.”

Linus coughs into his shoulder to hide his laughter and Basher raises an eyebrow. “It does not say that,” Danny scoffs.

“Maybe he’ll let me come visit the island,” Livingston says, voice all dreamy as he reads the postcard.

“Nobody’s going to Terry Benedict’s island hotel,” Danny decrees, crossing his arms tightly. Linus nods distractedly, but the others don’t even acknowledge him. “This is the guy who torpedoed Reuben out of his own casino, remember? One little care package doesn’t mean we’re all best friends with Benedict.”

“Except Tess, who keeps up with him regularly,” Linus retorts. Danny makes a note to lower Linus’ paycheque on the next job.

Then suddenly there’s a warm palm on Danny’s hand, and he glances down to see Rusty holding his hand for no rational reason. “Feel how soft this is,” Rusty murmurs, eyes glittering brighter than the Aegean Sea on the postcard. His thumb slips over the back of Danny’s hand, sending a wave of goosebumps up his arm.

By the time Danny realizes the room has fallen silent it’s too late, and Basher is the first to let out a snort of laughter. “We’ll give you two some privacy,” the bastard says, making sure to mispronounce _priv-_ acy.

Danny really needs to find new friends.

 

 

Holding Rusty’s hand came along with two jarring moments of comprehension. So while everyone else has errands to run and work to do, Danny is stuck handling his new insights.

Realization number one is that he really likes the feeling of Rusty’s hand in his. That one he has no idea how to begin to process, so he moves on to realization number two: Rusty may have soft hands but he smells wrong. And not just wrong like water lily and pearl and aloe vera. Rusty smells like a hospital, and it’s revolting.

So Danny takes a chisel to his savings account and hits the mall, trying not to obsess over realization number one as he sees elderly and teenage couples walking around hand-in-hand. He goes to the drugstore to pick up some toothpaste and shampoo; not the brand he uses, the brand Rusty uses. Sure, Rusty doesn’t even have a full head of hair to shampoo right now, but it’s the smell that counts.

Nobody questions him on his purchases because there’s nothing weird about buying toiletries for yourself, just like how there’s nothing weird about knowing what kind of toiletries your best friend uses. Rusty has smelled the same way for decades so it’s only rational that Danny would have noticed what products he uses by now. Completely understandable. His hand twitches.

On his way out he stops to buy Rusty’s favourite cologne, not even wincing at the price tag. Rusty can pay him back, he reasons, by regaining all his memories and becoming himself again.

He doesn’t even register how late in the night it is until he gets to the hospital, and none of the usual nurses are around to greet him. Danny doesn’t think he’s ever been here this late before but nobody stops him as he walks down the hall, so he enters Rusty’s room.

Rusty startles when Danny enters but from the looks of things he’d already been awake. He’s sitting on Danny’s usual chair, staring out the window at the empty parking lot and amber streetlights. “Hi,” he says warily, eyeing Danny with unwarranted suspicion.

“Hi,” Danny replies, tossing the purchases onto the bed. He takes a seat at the end of the mattress, watching Rusty climb out of his chair to walk over to the bed. He’s not hooked up to an IV drip anymore but he still limps a little as he walks, and he’s still so unbelievably thin. “Keeping an eye on the perimeter?”

“I guess,” Rusty laughs breathlessly, sitting down on the bed close to Danny. Closer than usual, Danny notices, and then wonders why in the hell he noticed that. “I keep feeling like something important’s going to happen, and if I don’t keep a lookout, I’ll miss it. You ever get that feeling?”

Danny has to fight the urge to say that he’s visited Rusty at least twice a day for the past four days for that very reason. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a sign your memories are coming back…?”

“Maybe,” Rusty says glumly. “Or it means I’m losing my mind cooped up in here.”

“Or it means you just need a nightcap before bed.”

“I wish,” Rusty smiles, eyes softening a little. “The doctors say that drinking will undo all the progress I’ve made so far, and could even start affecting my anterograde memories.” Regardless of doctor’s orders he perks up, craning his neck to look at the plastic bag. “But if you brought any, I’m not gonna say no.”

Danny laughs, and shakes his head. “It slipped my mind. Maybe next time, Rus.” He dumps the contents of the bag out onto the bed and watches Rusty’s face, not bothering to hide his smile at the confused look. “These are all the things you usually use. You dress like shit most of the time but you’re very particular about your scents, and you put more care into your hair than anyone I know. Including my sister. Excluding Frank.”

Rusty is silent for a moment as he uncaps the cologne and sprays it onto his nimble (too thin for comfort) wrist, letting his splint soak up some of the smell. Right as Danny’s about to ask, Rusty answers. “I like it.”

“Of course you do,” Danny breathes. “It’s yours.”

“Thank you,” Rusty says, rubbing his wrists together as best he can. Danny’s hands twitch with the urge to help him, and he makes sure to not do that, because that would be outrageous. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“What? Oh, yeah,” Danny blinks. “Her name’s Debbie. Deborah, technically, but nobody’s… well, come to think of it, you should try calling her that sometime and see how she reacts.”

Rusty laughs, sharp and sweet. “I think I’m good. Does she live in town?”

“No,” Danny answers, too surprised to lie. “None of us live here, we’re just sticking around for you. Debbie’s always on the run, though. Right now I think she and her partner are taking a bike trip across Canada. I couldn’t hope to understand that if I tried; cars were designed for road trips. What kind of death wish do you have to have to ride a motorbike across _Canada_?”

Rusty doesn’t reply to his rant. When Danny looks over he’s horrified to see Rusty deflated, pouting sullenly. “I didn’t ask any of you to stay here for me,” Rusty says, and Danny’s heart skips a beat and then falls out of his ribcage with sudden guilt. “If I’m inconveniencing everyone then why don’t you all just go back to your lives? It’s not like I’m getting any better.”

“Are you serious?” Danny stares so hard his eyes bug out, and when Rusty only pouts a little further Danny has to make the assumption that he is in fact serious. “Rusty. Nobody’s being inconvenienced at all. We’re your friends; you are our priority. You’re _my_ top priority. I would buy a permanent suite in the shitty Holiday Inn down the road if I didn’t think you were getting any better, but you are. You’re gonna be out of this shithole before you know it.” Rusty doesn’t look any more comforted by that, so Danny spits at him, “Do you _want_ to be left alone here?”

Rusty lifts his chin to return Danny’s stare, and Danny can see tears threatening to escape the corners of his eyes. “Is that supposed to be a rhetorical question?”

Hearing that from Rusty shatters something that Danny had _just_ been working on getting fixed, and he’s suddenly very glad he’s sitting down because otherwise he might collapse. He’s too tired and too old for this. “Every single question we’ve ever asked each other has been rhetorical,” he whispers. It sounds like a confession of something much more private.

Rusty doesn’t stop staring at him, even when Danny finally averts his gaze to stare out the window. Silence falls between them, uncomfortable for the first time in years. Danny can’t remember a time when he felt like he needed to make small talk with Rusty, and it sickens him. He misses his best friend, and all he has in his place is this ghost who looks like Rusty and soon will smell like Rusty but can’t read Danny’s thoughts.

Rusty is the first to break their silence, asking quietly, “Do I have a sister?”

The hope and despair warring in his voice almost makes Danny cry, so he shakes his head. “You’re an only child. You used to joke that Debbie was your sister though.”

“And… my parents?”

Danny swallows an acrid mouthful of curses directed at Rusty’s parents. “They didn’t keep in touch.”

“Oh,” Rusty shrinks into himself. “That explains why none of my family has come to visit.”

“We have,” Danny says before he can stop himself. He can feel Rusty’s eyes heavy on him, so he finally swivels his head to look at him again. “We have. Saul and Reuben were the ones that brought you to the hospital and they threatened the doctors to get you the nicest room available. And Yen flew in later that day.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Basher had to fly in from overseas but he paid for a redeye,” Danny continues, clenching his fists around the plastic bag in his hands. “Turk and Virgil abandoned a job in Juneau that they’ve been working for six weeks. Livingston took a Greyhound to meet Frank so they could carpool here.”

“Danny, I—”

“And Linus stole one of his father’s private jets,” Danny finishes. “That’s ten people who would do anything for you, and that isn’t even counting Debbie, or Isabel and Tess. Or hell, even Terry Benedict. You have a family, Rusty. We’re your family.”

“Okay,” Rusty says, breathless and wide-eyed. “Alright. You’re my family.”

Danny nods, jerking his head up and down and running his teeth over his lip. “Sorry for losing my cool,” he mutters quietly, staring at Rusty. “I just want you to know how much I… how much we care about you.”

“It’s obvious how much you care about me,” Rusty replies in a whisper, barely audible over the white noise of hospital machines and air conditioners. His hand is lying flat on the duvet between them. “But could you tell me once more, just to really get the point across?”

Danny blinks, and then smiles at the sarcastic rhetoric. After a second, Rusty smiles back.

 

 

The next morning Danny shows up before anyone else, which has almost become standard. Without any discussion, the ten of them have all made the unanimous, unspoken decision to stick around for as long as it takes. If they achieved this sort of cooperation on a job, they’d be unstoppable. They’ve fallen into routine, visiting Rusty in shifts; Danny is usually the first one there in the morning and the last one gone at night.

Rusty isn’t awake yet, head lolling to the side. The growing collection of paraphernalia on his bedside table contains the postcard from Terry, a stuffed toy from Reuben, and the cologne from Danny. This morning’s new addition is today’s newspaper, which Danny figures one of the nurses must have slipped under the cologne.

Thanks to their late-night visit Danny is exhausted, but he’s already got his blessed Americano in hand so he forges ahead and sits in Rusty’s armchair, reading the paper. He’s halfway through an article about a pipeline protest in Alaska when Rusty awakens, tossing and turning and coughing in his bed.

“Morning,” Danny greets him, and then, “you okay?” but Rusty responds to neither question, blindly climbing out of bed and stumbling to the bathroom. Danny only allows himself ten seconds of concerned panic before he goes back to reading the news, ignoring the pangs in his chest.

“G’morning,” finally comes a croak from the bathroom, and Danny looks over to see Rusty swallowing a daunting pill with water. He shakes out his shoulders before limping back to the bed, and Danny watches as he collapses ungracefully onto his mattress. “Head hurts like bitch.”

“That’s unfortunate to hear,” Danny replies, wondering if Rusty’s brain state somehow worsened overnight. His pulse picks up a little. “Do you remember who I am?”

“Yes, asshole,” Rusty says into his pillow. “Divorced travel agent.”

Right before Danny calls the nurse he remembers that that is, in fact, the fake alibi he gave Rusty. He settles back down into his seat, mollified. “Well, even if you can’t form proper sentences, it’s reassuring that you remember that.”

“Can too,” Rusty mumbles, and then slides around to face Danny, sighing deeply. “Just… my head is pounding. Probably because _you_ stopped me from getting my good eight hours of beauty sleep.”

The old Rusty had once told Danny that any adult who still needed more than 6 hours of sleep to survive was, verbatim, ‘a chump’. Danny smiles at the memory, offering Rusty his latte. “And yet somehow you still look fine. Here, this will help.”

In a shocking twist, Rusty shakes his head, declining free sweet espresso for the first time in his entire life. “I don’t know,” he says, eyeing the cup suspiciously. “My psychiatrist says I should be avoiding sugar. I’m kind of on a controlled diet.”

“I don’t ever want to hear you say the word _diet_ again. Are you possessed?” Danny gets up from his seat, coming over to lie down beside Rusty as gracefully as he can. There’s not enough room on the hospital bed for two grown men to lay in comfort, but there’s enough room for Danny to move his arm and waft the warm scent of coffee towards Rusty’s face. “Here. Smell that.”

“My doctor also said that I should avoid developing a caffeine dependency,” Rusty frowns, but there’s a smile pricking at the corner of his mouth. He shuffles over in bed to make room for Danny, just like their college years all over again.

“Did your doctor pay an extra dollar to substitute in coconut milk, and then lie to the barista when they asked if it was an allergy because they were running low? I don’t think so,” Danny cajoles, bringing the coffee cup closer to Rusty’s mouth.

Rusty licks his lips and Danny’s mouth goes dry, and for a moment he’s utterly convinced that this was a bad idea and he took it too far. But then Rusty’s hand closes around the cup and he takes a long sip, closing his eyes and letting the warmth sink in. “Fuck,” Rusty says quietly, eyelids fluttering and tongue darting out again. “Fuck. That’s better than morphine.”

“There’s my Rus,” Danny hears himself say with a friendly smile, totally ignoring the way he’s gone half-hard in his slacks. He shifts so Rusty won’t be able to see the evidence of whatever-the-fuck-is-happening-down-there, and tries not to freak out too much internally.

It doesn’t mean anything; he’s gotten erections from weirder things than watching his best friend drink coffee before. Like being in an unsteady Venetian gondola with said best friend, or watching Rusty break into an unbreakable safe, or when Rusty had taught him how to play billiards, or that time on his honeymoon with Tess when he’d had a surprisingly sentimental sex dream about Rusty. Any of those weird, inexplicable situations had been much weirder than this, so Danny figures he’s fine.

“Danny?” interrupts Rusty, and Danny realizes he’s been zoned out for a couple minutes while Rusty’s been, presumably, talking the entire time. “Would you mind?”

“No, of course not,” Danny’s voice comes out strangled as he agrees to something unknown. “Go ahead.”

“Okay,” Rusty replies, excited. He throws an arm over Danny to reach for the bedside table, retrieving a small green Moleskine journal. The first page is a handwritten table of contents, and every consequent page is numbered but Rusty flips through them too quickly for Danny to catch any important details. “Here’s one that Basher didn’t know. What’s my favourite food?”

“Easy,” Danny grins. “You don’t have a favourite food, because you’ll eat anything. And I mean anything. Although, we used to make a joke about capers…”

“Capers?” Rusty looks confused. “That’s… some sort of plant, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s—” Danny coughs. “Never mind. Write down meringue, I guess. You were always thrilled whenever you could get your hands on that stuff. Especially when my mom made it.”

“Huh,” Rusty grins. “I doubt my therapist will like that answer… maybe I’ll tell her eggplant. What’s my favourite movie?”

“You’ll watch anything with a dog and a happy ending,” Danny says. “But you don’t have a lot of time to watch movies. _The Prestige,_  maybe?”

Rusty hums. “Favourite song?”

Danny doesn’t hesitate. “ _You Can Call Me Al._  I think it’s only your favourite song because you know I hate it.”

Rusty’s brow furrows. “I don’t know if I remember… can you sing it for me?”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

Danny clears his throat, trying to remember the last time he sang anything outside of the shower, let alone his least favourite song in the universe. He thinks it might have been a whole decade. “If you’ll be my bodyguard,” he starts off, gruff and low, “I can be your long lost pal…”

Rusty gestures for him to continue, eyes wide.

“Seriously? I can call you Betty, and Betty when you call me…?”

Rusty leans in closer, a smile twitching on the edge of his lips. “I don’t remember… what’s the next line?”

Danny’s jaw drops. “You’re fucking kidding me,” he almost shrieks, putting his Americano down so he can punch Rusty as lightly as possible. “You asshole! I knew you remembered!”

Rusty laughs as he tosses his notebook away, grappling with Danny as best he can. “I don’t remember it pissing you off, but I would never forget a song _that_ good!”

Throwing shame to the wind, Danny climbs on top of him without another thought and shakes Rusty’s shoulders as much as he can without hurting him. “It’s the worst song ever written!”

“And Betty, when you call me,” Rusty starts to sing, cackling as he tries and fails to shove Danny away, “you can caaaall meee AAAAL! CALL ME—”

The door to Rusty’s hospital room swings open to reveal the head nurse and Saul, who both look appropriately shocked by the sight of a visitor wrestling with a patient as they sing together and drink forbidden coffee. Danny climbs off of Rusty in a heartbeat, who is laughing too hard to explain anything.

After an embarrassing second Danny starts to laugh too and Saul just rolls his eyes. “Let’s come back later,” he suggests to the nurse, who nods gratefully and closes the door behind them.

Danny hasn’t wrestled with Rusty since high school, and he doesn’t think he’s been that close to him in a couple years either. He still feels hot all over and he doesn’t think it’s just from the coffee, so he settles back down in his armchair instead of lying on the bed again.

Rusty doesn’t look disappointed but there’s something unfamiliar in his eyes, reminding Danny sharply that this isn’t the same man he’s known for years. “How come you know so much about me?”

There’s no suspicion behind the words, just honest curiosity. Danny wants to crack and tell Rusty everything about their lives of crime, about how he’s not a hotelier at all and hasn’t wanted to be for years. Hearing the truth might even be enough of a trigger to help heal Rusty’s amnesia, and if the doctors and therapists all knew that Rusty’s friends were lying they might order that they tell him the truth about himself.

But despite all that, Danny can’t help but kind of like the appeal of someone who doesn’t know he’s a criminal. Rusty’s shaved head and physical trauma aren’t the only things new about him; the skinny man looking back at Danny with wide curious eyes has no idea about all the wrong he’s done, and it’s almost comforting to think that maybe Rusty could go on to live a happy life without crime.

“We know everything about each other,” Danny corrects him, sadness bleeding into his voice. “You just forgot.”

 

 

Every time Danny visits Rusty he brings over three meals; one for himself and two for Rusty. The first time he’d unpacked his bag in front of Linus he had prepared for the distinction to be awkward, but Linus hadn’t put up a fight at all. It seems like the only two people in the world who don’t know about Rusty’s appetite are Rusty’s therapist (who Danny doesn’t trust that much anyway), and Rusty himself.

“This might be too much,” Rusty finally says, and Danny’s head shoots up to look at him. “I mean, there’s lots of other patients on my floor. I’m sure I could share it.”

“They’re starving you here,” Danny accuses, pointing a slice of cantaloupe at Rusty. “You’re getting used to portion control. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Well, it’s just,” Rusty gives the second sandwich a sad look, and then looks over at the cafeteria attendant, who doesn’t return his gaze. “They expect me to eat a full dinner later too, and Yen has been sneaking in a lot of snacks.”

“Lucky you,” Danny says, leaving no room for further argument. He’s about to take another bite when his phone starts ringing, and Isabel’s face lights up the screen. Danny purses his lips, and then bites the bullet; “Rusty, do you want to talk to Isabel?”

“Oh!” Rusty exclaims, uncharacteristically excited. “My ex-girlfriend the movie star, right? Yes, I want to talk to her.”

Danny hands over the phone and Rusty picks up, smiling brightly. This new grin is something Danny’s unused to seeing; prior to this past week, Rusty hasn’t really smiled like that in years. If there’s something that kept him from being this happy Danny wants to know what it is, but he’s a little scared he’ll never be able to find out.

The other thing he’s scared about is that his adjustments to Rusty’s diet seem to be working. He’s only spent two weeks recovering but Rusty has eaten and eaten and eaten until now, and he’s finally starting to look less like a skeleton and more like himself. His hair will take a while to grow out and he still has to wear a splint on his wrist for another week more, but he looks happier. Happier than before, even.

One thing Rusty and Danny haven’t talked about in their thorough and comprehensive conversations is that tomorrow, Rusty has an important physical examination. His concussion is almost entirely healed and the ugly scars on his shoulders, arms, and legs are on their way to healing too. He still has retrograde amnesia but remembering pop culture and spending time around his loved ones is apparently helping, even though Danny can’t distinguish any sort of change.

The reason why tomorrow’s check-up is so important is that it’s an examination in a pass-fail sense; if Rusty passes, he’ll be diagnosed as physically healthy enough to leave the hospital. Danny watches Rusty chat with Isabel and eat fruit salad but he can’t get himself to focus on the conversation, too caught up in his own thoughts. If tomorrow’s check-up goes well, that means Danny can finally leave his shitty room at the Holiday Inn. He’ll never have to see Erika or any of the nurses again, and he’ll probably never come back to this town.

“No, Danny didn’t mention that,” Rusty says, reeling Danny’s attention back in. He smiles around another mouthful, and then looks over at Danny and raises an eyebrow. “ _Europol,_  you say?”

Danny pales, hoping that Isabel won’t actually be foolhardy enough to tell Rusty the truth. But if it is the truth, he seems to be handling it remarkably well. Rusty even laughs at something Isabel says, shaking his head. “No, he never mentioned that either. Well, good for you two. That’s wonderful. I’m excited to meet— well, reintroduce myself, I guess. Alright, here’s Danny. Danny, she wants to talk to you!”

Rusty hands him the phone with a cheery smile, and Danny takes it, trying to stop his hand from shaking. “Hi, Isabel,” he says, faking a cheery smile as well.

“That was bizarre,” Isabel says before anything else. She doesn’t sound overly emotional, but Danny also doesn’t get the impression she just told Rusty his new life is a lie. “He’s so happy.”

“He’s always been that way,” Danny says, keenly aware of Rusty listening to him.

“No. He said he’s excited to meet Tess… it’s just bizarre, Daniel. I don’t know if I can see him like this.”

“You’ll get used to it.” Danny’s big false grin flickers, and he gets up from the table, signaling to Rusty that he’ll be right back. Rusty nods, already halfway done his second meal, and Danny excuses himself. He waits until he’s in the hall before he quietly asks, “What did you tell him?”

“The truth.” Isabel sounds surprised. “I told him that Linus’ mother hired me to work at the FBI after Europol fired me, so now I work for Bobby Caldwell and I’m dating Tess. What did you expect me to tell him?”

“I don’t know,” Danny exhales. “He doesn’t know he’s a criminal yet. I… I don’t want to tell him.”

“That makes sense. Being a thief is shameful,” Isabel agrees, and Danny thinks that she was maybe not the best choice to confide his troubles in. “Tess still thinks you should tell him and it’ll jog his memory, but I’m not so sure. I kind of like the idea of an upstanding, morally intact Rusty.”

“You just miss Robert Ryan,” Danny accuses.

“Sure, and you just miss having an accomplice.”

“I miss…” He drifts off, wondering if Isabel is right. He’s had a great time this last week, and Rusty sure seems like the change is affecting him positively. Maybe he’ll never remember who he is, and he’ll forget all the good times— but he’ll also forget all the hardships. The blank look on Rusty’s face as he asked about his parents is one that Danny will cherish for the rest of time.

“I’m sorry,” Isabel says after a prolonged silence. “I shouldn’t have said that. Rusty will get better, Danny; he’ll get his memories back. And when he does, he’ll be grateful that you tried to preserve his innocence.”

“Yeah,” Danny says, staring at Rusty through a window to the cafeteria. He looks just like all the other hospital patients; alone, hungry, and lost. Suddenly tomorrow can’t come soon enough.

 

 

The hallway outside the doctor’s office has never been this crowded. That isn’t just speculation, Danny knows for a fact it has never been this crowded because the nurse came to tell them off ten minutes ago.

Despite the warning, none of them have moved, all clutching each other without bothering to pretend they aren’t. Linus has been grinding his teeth so much that Danny is going to have to steal him a mouth guard, and Frank has been staring at the same looping video on his phone for at least five dozen loops.

Virgil reaches over to lock his phone and Frank shoots him a grateful look that needs no translation. Basher’s sitting on the floor and leaning his tired head against Reuben’s knee, who has made no protest yet. Reuben and Saul’s hands are linked and just seeing that makes Danny’s own palms feel colder, which is flat-out ridiculous. He’s a grown man who has no excuse to be pining like a thirteen-year-old over someone who he doesn’t even like.

The door unlocks and everyone looks up; Basher scrambles to his feet and Danny does the same, but a little more gracefully. (Just a little.) Rusty opens the door, beaming like he just won the lottery, and Yen cheers ecstatically.

Danny knows what that smile means, and as everyone around him moves to go embrace the newly released Rusty, Danny finds he can’t move. He feels heartbroken— and then immediately afterwards he feels awash with self-hatred for being _sad_. Rusty’s been cooped up in the hospital for two weeks, and now he’s getting out. This is a huge victory. There is no reason at all Danny’s smile should be fake right now.

Rusty makes eye contact with him over Linus’ shoulder, and he must see straight into Danny’s heart because the grin slides right off his face. Danny tries to smile quickly to cover up for his mistake, but the damage is done. Confusion fights with relief as he approaches Rusty, offering his arm.

“Come on, let’s blow this joint,” Danny hears himself say. Another smile twitches at Rusty’s lips but he still looks so confused, and Danny swallows down the sadness in his throat. He hands Rusty a bag containing all his gifts and his notebook. “I stopped and picked up your personal effects.”

In a perfect world, Rusty would stand still and gape at Danny as every memory rushed back to him in a slow but instant return to himself. He would crack some joke about Tess being in the backseat or Danny not wearing a ring anymore. Maybe he and Rusty could find a backseat together somewhere, and someone else would drive them into the sunset.

But it isn’t a perfect world and nothing like that happens. Rusty reaches to take the bag, obviously bemused. “Thanks, Danny.”

The muscles in Danny’s face keep twitching for some reason. “Of course.”

Rusty’s departure from the hospital is much less hectic than his arrival, relief shining on everyone’s faces as they usher him out to the parking lot. Arrangements have already been put in place for his next destination: Lacuna, the hotel that Rusty still believes he owns and operates.

It seems everyone is in agreement that the best course of action is to let Rusty return to a fake life he never really led, waiting until his brain starts to pick up details on its own. There’s an invite waiting for Danny and the other nine to come stay at the hotel, but most of them decline; these two weeks without work have been more taxing than predicted. Basher agrees to come, as do Reuben and Linus; Danny suspects they’re just taking advantage of the free hotel room.

Before he gets the chance to say a proper goodbye Reuben is ushering Rusty into the backseat of a limousine far too extravagant for the occasion. Danny feels left in the lurch, hands in his pockets as he stands still in the cold parking lot. Just as Rusty turns to make eye contact with him through the window the car pulls away, and the cement beneath Danny’s feet could almost be molten.

Then there’s a gentle hand on his shoulder, and Danny nearly jumps. “I’ve got a new opportunity for you,” Saul tells him. Danny hadn’t realized anyone else was still there. “If you’re ready to get back into the game.”

Danny counts to three before steeling his jaw and replying, “I’ve got nothing to lose.”

 

 

As usual, it turns out that Saul’s opportunity is someone else’s loss. The job is simple; a quick and easy robbery of a kitschy gift shop that calls itself a museum. The owner claims his gallery has exclusive paraphernalia detailing the history of the American Midwest, but Saul— and Danny— know better. The real hidden treasure is inside the owner’s private collection of cowboy artifacts; a leather jacket covered in detailing that makes it one-of-a-kind.

The descendants of the jacket’s owners were the ones to get in touch with Saul, stating that they know the owner of the museum and so they wouldn’t be able to steal it back themselves. Thankfully for them, Saul knew someone whose schedule just opened up wide, and who’s got no qualms with stealing from museum curators, who are basically just glorified thieves anyway.

“It’s… uh, it’s green,” Livingston says from the shotgun seat, bringing Danny’s focus back to the road, the traffic light, the honking car behind them, and his passenger. Danny floors it to cover up for his mistake, blinking away thoughts of the job. It feels nice to embroil himself in crime again. Distracting. “Thanks for giving me a ride home, Danny, I really appreciate it.”

“Any time,” Danny nods. “How’s the Bureau?”

“Oh, it’s fine. It’s kind of nice to have a stable job. Not-not that there’s anything wrong with our jobs, of course, but my pension’s doing really well.” Livingston falls silent, perhaps waiting for Danny to comment on his retirement plan. Danny’s thoughts are solely consumed by leather jackets, black tattoos, CCTV, and coconut milk. Eventually Livingston adds, “Once in a while I get to see Ms. Lahiri too.”

“Oh yeah?” Danny answers without really listening.

“Yeah, she seems really happy. Well, scary, but. Happier than when she had to deal with me in Europe. And she hasn’t given up my cover which is nice.”

“Good for Ms. Lahiri.”

“Soon to be Mrs. Lahiri, I think.”

“Well, good for—” Danny’s foot stutters against the brake, and he nearly gets whiplash looking over at Livingston. “ _Missus?_  Tess hasn’t mentioned anything about that.”

“I mean,” Livingston stammers, “Neither has Ms. Lahiri— I mean, neither has Isabel. It’s just you can tell sometimes, you know… you know? They make each other really happy so there’s no reason to…” He wilts under the force of Danny’s gaze, so Danny finally gives up and looks back at the dashboard. “You know, when you know, you know. You know?”

“No, Livingston, I’m not sure I know.”

“Okay,” Livingston wheezes, gripping his knees tightly. For a moment Danny thinks he’s worked himself into a state of anxiety so bad that the rest of the car ride might be silent. That would be perfect because then Danny would be able to plan, but guilt still gnaws at him— that is, until Livingston starts right back up again, “Anyway, thanks again for the ride, Danny. If it had been up to me, I would have rented a car and driven myself, but I guess it wasn’t up to me.”

“Yeah, your pension,” Danny mumbles.

“No, no, it’s not that. I lost my driver’s license a while back and I haven’t been able to find it, and it’s hard to go into a DMV when you work at the FBI. All these privacy issues, you know?”

“I know.”

“It’s alright though, I don’t really mind. The trip is nice, right? Gotta love DC. Did I tell you Roman’s coming to visit me soon?”

“Roman…” Danny blinks. “Roman Nagel?”

“That’s the one,” Livingston beams. “We’ve been keeping in touch lately like we’re pen pals or something. By the way, he sends his regards about Rusty—”

“Oh, thank god,” Danny interrupts, seeing a sign marking their exit. He practically turns the car on a dime, holding the wheel loosely as they skid. “I mean, how nice of him. Hey, I hope you don’t mind if I make an extra stop here.”

Livingston peers out the window as they pull up outside what could only be described as a tourist trap. “Oh. Sure!” Danny opens the door, and to his utmost disappointment, Livingston follows suit. “I love cowboy stuff. You know, as long as they recognize the historical and cultural impact.”

“I wouldn’t get my hopes up.” Danny indicates the sign that says ‘$11.95 For A Picture In A Dead Real Cowboy’s Hat’. “But maybe you can get a magnet or something.”

“It says they’re closed,” Livingston points out, standing beside the car as Danny walks up to the storefront. “Hey, Danny? It says they’re closed.”

“Be a little louder, why don’t you.” The lock on the door is child’s play to pick. Literally. He and Rusty knew how to pick this kind of lock before they were nine.

“What?” Livingston asks at the same volume, and then instant realization befalls him. He groans, slightly quieter. “Oh. This isn’t just a carpool, is it?”

“I hope that’s rhetorical,” Danny says, opening the door. Almost immediately, alarms start to sound, and he whips around to give Livingston a desperate look. “Alright, in my defense, I was not warned that the place would be rigged up after hours.”

“Oh man,” Livingston sighs, but he’s already headed past Danny to enter and disarm the system. “Oh, geez, Danny. This isn’t good, I didn’t know we were doing a job,” he whispers, fury undercut by panic. He pulls out a fistful of wires and the alarms are shut off, replaced with dark, blissful silence.

“It’s like you don’t know me at all,” Danny grins, locking the door behind them. The museum is far too crowded with ugly knick-knacks and unimportant artifacts, but it still only takes him a second to centre himself. He strides to the front desk, reaching behind the counter to grab a set of conveniently labelled keys. “Livingston, is the sheriff en route?”

“No.” Livingston heads over to stand beside Danny. He nervously frowns, fidgeting with the bundle of wires he’s still holding like a comfort. “I disabled it before it would have sent out any signal. This is supposed to be my time off.”

“Think of it this way.” Danny reaches for the Dead Real Cowboy’s Hat off the back wall, lifting it from its peg and putting it on Livingston’s head. “You’re still enjoying your time off, but you get to take home two souvenirs. Here’s one. The other is thirty thousand dollars that can go straight into your pension.”

That number seems to shut Livingston up for the moment, so Danny returns to examining the keys. Sure enough, ‘backroom’ unlocks the door to the ‘Employees Only’ backroom, and as they push it open Danny’s heart jumps up into his throat.

Sitting in the back room is a man instantly identifiable as the owner of the museum, who swivels around in his chair to face them. He’s clearly high as a kite, bong in one hand and lighter in the other. Despite his current state (or perhaps because of it), he looks astonished to see them.

But before Danny can turn tail and run, Livingston steps forward, stance wide and hat lowered. “Put your hands up, varmint,” he instructs in a voice deeper than he’s ever used before, and raises the bundle of wires as if he’s holding any sort of weapon.

And for the first time ever, someone believes one of Livingston’s performances without a single doubt. “ _Whoa,_ ” the stoned museum owner gasps, blinking slowly at Livingston and hardly paying any attention to Danny. “A _real cowboy_.”

 

 

On their way out, Danny returns the wires to the alarm system and the keys to the front desk. He locks the door behind them, well aware that his jaw has dropped but fully unable to pick it back up. He thinks this is the longest he’s ever been speechless.

“Well?” Livingston grins, expectant. Danny turns to look at him as he slides into the shotgun seat. Livingston is wearing a century-and-a-half old leather jacket worth over a hundred thousand dollars, and a novelty cowboy hat worth 11.95 per picture. “Don’t you have to call Saul?”

“You call Saul,” Danny finally manages to breathe, pulling away from the parking lot. “There’s no way in hell he’s going to believe me.”

Saul does not, in fact, believe a word of Livingston’s story but it doesn’t seem to matter. The ancestral jacket is returned to its rightful owners, and Danny and Livingston walk away with thirty grand each. By the time they’re back on the road to Washington, Livingston seems to have forgotten his anxious rambling from earlier, content to sit back in his seat and admire his new hat in the side mirror.

This time the onus falls on Danny to talk and he can’t even think of the first thing to say. He finally settles on “Good job,” and Livingston just laughs peacefully in response. “No, really, great job. I can’t believe you pulled that.”

“ _We_ pulled that,” Livingston says, which is overly generous considering Danny did jack-all. “I mean, you opened the door.”

“But you made the guy open his safe. You threatened to _lasso_ him.”

“I’ve seen a lot of movies.”

“Clearly I’ve got to watch those movies,” Danny prompts, but Livingston doesn’t bite and the conversation peters out again. As the tech expert reaches for his phone and sends another text, Danny can’t help but try to sneak a peek. “Are you telling your pen pal about the job?”

“Who, Roman?” Livingston smiles wide without looking up from the screen. “Yeah.”

And suddenly the smile plastered to Livingston’s face sends Danny right back into the depression he’s been trying hard to distract himself from. Turns out even the sight of Livingston pretending to be a bandit isn’t enough to put his mind at ease. Before he can help himself, he asks, “You two get along?”

“I guess so,” Livingston laughs at a joke Danny can’t see. “You know how it is in this business; when you meet someone who you trust, you’ve got to keep them around. I mean, _you_ know.”

Danny glances back at the highway for a second, trying to digest that properly. “You mean Rusty and I.”

“Uh, no,” Livingston finally looks up from his phone. “Sorry, I meant you and Tess. You two keep in touch, right?”

“Oh,” Danny keeps his eyes firmly fixed on the road, drowning in embarrassment. “Yeah, we— yes.”

“Are you and Rusty—”

“I don’t know,” Danny snaps, and then blurts out, “I mean, I don’t know what you mean. There is no Rusty and I.” His grip tightens on the wheel. “Not anymore. Are you and _Roman…_?”

“I guess,” Livingston mutters, raising his eyebrows and looking back down at his phone. “If you want to put a label on it.”

“Wait, what?”

“Turn there,” Livingston points at an exit sign up ahead, and Danny considers finding another gift shop to rob just so they can keep talking. But even though this is the most valuable time he’s ever spent with the eye in the sky, eventually all conversations have to come to an end.

He drives Livingston home, dropping him off outside a shabby condo building and sending him off with a wave. Then he goes straight to the nearest motel and books their nicest room for the night, and the whole time all he can think about is how much nicer Rusty’s hotel would be.

He falls asleep and dreams of cowboys, and then of hoteliers, and then of nothing at all.

 

 

It takes three more days of travel until Danny admits he has no idea where he’s going, and that there’s no point staying on the run when he’s running from himself.

“Debbie,” Danny moans into the phone, leaning his forehead against the steering wheel. “Help me. Debbie. O sister, where art thou?”

Debbie picks up, because she’s the best sister in the world. Danny has never been happier to hear her irritated voice. “What do you want?”

“I messed up.” Danny doesn’t bother hiding the sadness in his voice. “I need your advice.”

“I’m a little busy right now, Dan,” Debbie says, because she’s the worst sister in the world. “Can I call you… is that your music, or is it playing somewhere, because it’s _really_ loud.”

“It’s my music,” he weeps into the receiver without turning the music down. “It’s helping me.”

“Oh boy. Something with Tess?”

“Worse.”

“Rusty?”

“How did you know?”

“Well, you told me he’s been in the hospital. Did he get worse? Danny, I really can’t hear anything over the music—”

Danny turns the volume down. “He got better. He’s out of the hospital.”

“That’s… good?”

“No, because…” Danny rolls his head around on the steering wheel, almost hitting the horn. “I don’t know what to do now. He’s moving on with his life, and I don’t know how I move on.”

“What do you mean? Of course you know how, just get a job. I’m working one right now, which is why I really don’t have time to talk to you.”

“Can I come stay at your house for a bit?”

“Sure, he can stay,” he hears Lou say in the background, and then Debbie says “Absolutely not. Where are you?”

“Outside your house,” Danny confesses. He lifts his head from the steering wheel just in time to see Debbie and Lou peek out from behind the living room blinds, and the sight startles him. “Wait, are you _home?_ I thought you were in Canada?!”

“Tell him to come in,” Lou says.

“We _are_ in Canada, and you may _not_ enter our house,” Debbie says.

“I’m coming in,” Danny says.

The first thing Debbie says to him upon opening the door is not, in fact, ‘hello brother, it’s been years’ or ‘I’m sorry you’re in a bad situation’ or ‘would you like an alcoholic beverage or possibly seven’. The first thing out of her mouth is “Take your shoes off,” followed by a furtive look around and the door slamming on Danny’s ankles.

“Are you in hiding?” he asks, toeing out of his shoes. Lou smiles at him and he steps forward to hug her. “Hi, Lou. Love what you’ve done with the place.”

“Yes, we’re in hiding,” Debbie says, already ignoring him and returning to her place at the window. Danny wasn’t lying; he does love the décor. Nothing charms him like minimalistic, stripped-down, just-moved-in furnishings, especially when there’s random duffel bags and firearms strewn over the floor. “Which means no visitors. Which means you have to leave.”

“Well, I’ve already taken my shoes off, so that probably isn’t going to happen.” Danny hangs up his jacket in the otherwise-empty closet, admiring what appears to be a rocket launcher. “Hey, is that a rocket launcher?”

“We’re really busy, Danny, so you can’t stay long,” Lou says, sympathetic but strict as always. “Do you want a drink?”

“God, I love you,” Danny nods, and Lou runs off to the kitchen. “Debbie, if you ever want to trade lovers, you can have Tess and I’ll take Lou.”

Debbie rolls her eyes, finally standing up from her perch at the window. “Or I could take Tess and keep Lou, because Tess isn’t your lover anymore. Maybe you can take Lou and I’ll take Rusty?”

“Deal, except Rusty isn’t my lover,” Danny laughs. Debbie fixes him with an utterly unconvinced look. “What?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just that you called me about two minutes ago because you were sad that Rusty was moving on with his life, and you didn’t know what to do with yourself. And you spent, what, a whole week in his hospital room?”

“I didn’t stay in his room,” Danny replies, appropriately scandalized. “I booked a suite down the street.”

“Suite is a very nice word for a shitty room at the Holiday Inn,” Lou chimes in from the other room.

“Lou, I take back what I said about loving you.”

“No skin off my nose.”

“Danny,” Debbie interrupts. “We’re _really_ in the middle of something here. Do you actually need advice, or is this one of those things where you just want me to read a book while you talk at me and work out your own issues?”

Danny bites the inside of his cheek, giving his answer thought. Something on his face must give away that he’s more conflicted than usual, because Debbie’s eyes soften and she pulls him into a hug. “I don’t know what to do,” Danny mutters into her shoulder. “I should tell him who he really is, but he’s so happy now. He’s happy without me.”

“Really?” Debbie pulls away. “Is he happy without you? Because here I thought you’d been at his bedside for a week, nursing him back to health.”

“I don’t mean like that, I mean he’s happy not knowing who I am. He thinks I’m a travel agent, Deb.”

Debbie takes a long look at him, sizing him up. “But you’re not happy without him.”

“Right,” Danny says, so relieved that Debbie understands him. But then he catches onto the meaning behind her words and takes a step back. “Wait, no, I am—”

“But you’re not. You drove all the way here because you’re pining.”

“I’m _not_ pining! Not… like that. I just miss my best friend,” Danny pleads, unwilling to consider the other idea.

“Oh, sure,” Lou says, coming into the room with a travel mug. “Just like how I miss Debbie when we’re not together.”

“Right,” Debbie smirks. “Or how Tess misses her best friend Isabel when she goes on trips.”

Danny opens the travel mug and is surprised to find a milkshake instead of alcohol. “Okay,” he reasons, lifting his hands in surrender. “Okay. I’m not saying it is that. But, if it was that, how would I—”

“Go to him,” Lou and Debbie say in unison, both rolling their eyes and looking bored.

“Are you just saying that to get me out of your house, or do you really think I should—”

“Both,” the pair says in unison.

“Alright,” Danny sulks, and then decides that this might not be such a bad idea after all. “Alright, I’m going to go to him.”

Lou smiles while Debbie just looks impatient. “And for god’s sake, Danny, tell him you’re not a travel agent.”

 

 

“I’m so glad you came to visit the Lacuna, sir,” the clerk at the front desk beams. “We could use a great review from a great travel agent.”

“My pleasure,” Danny says through his teeth, putting on the charm. It’s not hard; the hotel is beautiful inside and out. He’s never been here before because the old Rusty never invited him, insistent that Danny wouldn’t have a good time. “Is there any chance you have a penthouse suite available?”

“Oh, yes, most of our suites are available. Don’t tell Mr. Ryan I said that, though; he really wants this place to do well. Did you know he just survived a terrorist attack last month?”

“I had no idea,” Danny leans on his hand, looking appropriately scandalized.

“Well, don’t tell Mr. Ryan I said this, but he got tied up and thrown in front of a train by terrorists, and then the attack caused amnesia so he doesn’t remember a thing about his past life. It’s so sad. But it really has made him a better hotel owner and an all-around nicer person. Don’t tell him I said all that, though.”

“I had no idea he got tied up,” Danny raises an eyebrow. “What has he been doing since his return?”

“Trying to relearn his job, I guess,” the clerk shrugs. “And spending time with his friends who are staying at the hotel.”

“Nice,” Danny laughs, and when the clerk doesn’t join in he clarifies, “that’s nice that he has friends staying here.” A group of tourists waiting in line behind him impatiently cough, and the clerk leans around him to peek at them. Danny gives him a polite, bland smile. “I guess it would be impossible for me to look at the penthouse suite before booking it, right?”

“No, I could do that for you,” the front desk agent shrugs. “As long as you get someone else to swipe you into the elevator, you can go up to whichever floor you’d like and explore around!”

“How useful.”

“Could I just grab your name so I can begin setting up your reservation in the meantime, sir?”

The clerk opens a new window, preparing to type. “Danny Ryan,” Danny supplies, and watches the colour drain from the concierge’s face. He makes sure to put his hand on the counter, showing off his old wedding ring. “And before you set up my reservation, could you let my husband know I’m here? I’m sure he won’t want to wait to see me.”

“Oh my god,” the clerk cringes. “Mr. Ryan. I had no idea.”

“Clearly,” Danny smiles. “I’ll head straight to the penthouse now then, and you can send up the key when it’s ready.”

“Of course, Mr. Ryan,” the clerk bleats helplessly as Danny walks away, heading for the elevators. The group of tourists is practically buzzing and Danny thinks he sees a camera lens flash, but by the time he turns around the elevator doors are already closed.

The penthouse suite is more spacious than he could have possibly hoped for, filled with greenery but not too crowded. Danny pours himself a scotch from the provided bar fridge, trying not to feel too on edge. The couch is comfortable enough that he could take a nap and the bed looks inviting enough to sleep for a week. But he stays awake, trying to fight the onslaught of feelings he isn’t sure how to address.

If he’s as honest with himself as Debbie and Livingston and Tess would want him to be, he’s starting to develop complicated feelings for Rusty. The feelings are complicated for several reasons: first, he’s never allowed himself to feel this way before, not for decades. The relationship between them has been strained at times but it’s never dipped into romantic territory. Danny hasn’t let it get there, and Rusty has never shown interest. They’ve been inseparable their entire lives but as friends, partners, two halves of the same brains.

But that closeness doesn’t explain all the feelings Danny’s wrestling with now. Every time he thinks about Rusty, he feels warm and cold all over, maniacally desperate but calm too. There’s still misery of course, and seeing Rusty fail to recognize him is a memory that he’ll never forget. But mostly he feels feverish, like he would do anything just to touch Rusty again. Every time he’s touched himself in the past two weeks he’s thought about Rusty, whether intrusively or directly.

The worst complication is that it isn’t just something he could explain away with lust, or just needing to get laid. The worst complication is that when Rusty pushes open the door to the penthouse suite, holding a key card in his hand, Danny feels his heart soar. The worst complication is going to ruin his life.

“You look good,” Danny says, right as Rusty asks, “Why do my staff think you’re my husband?”

“You’ve gotta fire that concierge—”

“What?”

“You look good,” Danny repeats, sheepish and embarrassed. Heat crawls up the back of his neck and he restrains himself from scratching it. “The climate here must be better for you; you look healthier.”

“Thanks,” Rusty says, ducking his head and scratching the back of his neck. Danny stares unabashedly. Rusty’s already started to get some of his beloved tan back and his hair is growing out. He’s wearing an old dress shirt and suit, sleeves rolled up on both sides. The only giveaway that he isn’t himself is that he and Danny aren’t in complete sync, finishing each other’s sentences. “Why do I have to fire my front desk clerk?”

“Well, they told me all the details of your injuries,” Danny tells him to watch Rusty flinch. “And they said you used to be a real asshole before the attack.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot in the past couple days,” Rusty sighs. He crosses the room to pour some water, clinking his glass against Danny’s. “It seems that not everyone here thinks the sun shines out of my ass like you do; according to most of the employees, I used to be a pretty bad boss. I was almost never here.”

“Oh no, I know you used to be an asshole,” Danny grins. “But I’m kind of an asshole too, so we got along alright.”

Rusty downs his water and then quirks an eyebrow. “Is that why we got married?”

“We aren’t married,” Danny laughs, perhaps a little too loud. Rusty just stares. “I just wanted to put the fear of God into your concierge, since they said so many times not to tell you anything. Absolutely no loyalty.”

“Oh,” Rusty says, sliding his hand into his pocket. “Okay, well… sorry you had that experience. Do you like the hotel otherwise?”

“It’s real nice.” Rusty smiles brightly, and Danny has to take another hefty serving of scotch. “I’ve never stayed here before, but whatever you’re doing, keep it up.”

He offers Rusty more water and Rusty gladly accepts, sinking into a seat on the couch and watching Danny pour. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he confesses, running a hand through his short hair. “I’m just running through the motions of what I think I should be doing but there isn’t even any records of how I used to run this place. I’ve looked through my office and I just keep finding blueprints for other buildings and notes that don’t make any sense.”

“Strange,” Danny mutters, making a mental note to raid Rusty’s office.

“Very. And everyone has been so nice and supportive but I still feel like a big fraud; like any second they’re all going to snap and start yelling at me because I didn’t remember some crucial part of my job.”

“Well, if that happens, you can fire them because you’re the boss. Is Reuben still staying here?”

“Yeah,” Rusty’s face clears, and he sits up straighter. “He’s so nice. Linus and Basher are still here too; Basher really likes it. It’s been good to have a couple familiar faces.” He turns to face Danny. “And it’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too, Rus,” Danny loses his focus staring at the patterns on Rusty’s dress shirt. He can’t remember if he’s seen this outfit on Rusty before; it’s somehow tacky and flattering simultaneously. “Don’t worry too much, things’ll turn around. Are there any potential Mrs. Hotel Magnates in the picture yet?”

It’s an innocuous enough question and Danny expects an innocent answer; maybe one of the waitresses or a hotel guest caught Rusty’s eye. What he doesn’t expect is for Rusty to laugh loudly, spinning his glass around in his palm. “Nah, I’m gay.”

Danny stares at Rusty. The room slides away beneath his feet. “What?”

“Is that a new development?” Rusty looks slightly confused and very awkward.

Danny feels flabbergasted. “How long have you… known?”

Rusty shoots him a funny look and says, “Since you walked into my hospital room.”

“Will you excuse me,” Danny breathes before chugging his scotch. As far as graceful exits go it’s only a five out of ten and he loses points for not making any eye contact, but beggars can’t be choosers; he runs to the bathroom.

Debbie doesn’t answer the phone, but Tess picks up after the first ring. “Hi, Danny! That’s funny, I was going to call you today. How are things?”

“I have a question,” Danny whispers, running the shower just in case Rusty’s eavesdropping.

“What?”

“I have a question,” he repeats.

“I know, I asked what it was. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Danny sits down on the edge of the bathtub. “Is Rusty gay?”

Loud, raucous laughter comes over the line; it’s nearly deafening. Danny holds the phone away from his ear, frowning. “I’m serious,” he tries to tell Tess, who doesn’t stop laughing. In fact, she starts hiccupping, laughing so hard she cries. “It’s a serious question.”

“Daniel, it’s Isabel,” comes a different voice over the line. “Why is my girlfriend in hysterics?”

“I just asked her a question,” Danny mumbles. “But you… actually, you would probably know. Isabel, is Rusty gay?”

There is a beat of silence and then, with the utmost patience, Isabel asks, “Are the lights on in Vegas?”

“What?”

“Can a fish swim?”

“ _What_ — oh, okay, I get it.”

“Is the sky blue?”

“I _get it,_  Isabel.”

“Danny?” comes a voice from outside the bathroom, and Danny quickly turns off the shower, hanging up the call. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he wheezes, dragging a hand across his scalp. “It’s open.”

Rusty pushes the door open, looking uncertain. “You can’t just call your ex-wife to get out of every conversation with me,” he asserts nervously.

“No, I wasn’t…” As if on cue the guilt sets in. “I don’t always do that, do I? I just had to ask her a question.”

“If I’m gay.” Rusty crosses his arms and leans against the bathroom counter. “I’m guessing the old Rusty wasn’t into men, then.”

“No, he wasn’t,” Danny admits. “Not to… to my knowledge, anyway.”

Rusty’s forehead creases. “Thought you knew everything about me.”

“Apparently not.” As Danny gets to his feet, the thought strikes him that this is an extraordinarily small bathroom for a penthouse suite. The motion brings him too close to Rusty and he stands stock still, thinking and overthinking. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Rusty brushes his words off. “It’s… nice to know I still have a few surprises up my sleeve.”

“You’re multi-faceted,” Danny says, instead of _‘you’re one of the best criminals who’s ever existed, how’s that for a surprise'._ They’re still standing too close to be casual, especially after the declaration Rusty just made. For a wonderful, crazy moment, Danny convinces himself something is about to happen— and he’s surprised to find that he isn’t scared or nervous, just excited.

He tears his eyes away from paisley fractals and discovers Rusty’s blue eyes keenly watching him. Rusty parts his lips and Danny’s heart stutters, but all he does is say “Let me give you a tour, Mr. _Ryan,_ ” eyes twinkling with mirth.

 

 

The industry of thieves is remarkably small, considering what a lucrative business it is. But considering how spread out they are over the world, Danny sure seems to run into people he knows an awful lot. Once he’d stumbled onto Saul and Matsui in the basement of a dive bar in Camden, entirely by accident. They’d been as astonished as him.

All this to say that at this point, Danny shouldn’t be surprised when they happen upon Linus wandering the hotel corridors. What surprises Danny more about the meeting is that the first thing Rusty does is go in for a hug, which is absolutely bizarre. Linus hugs Rusty back with barely restrained glee, making eye contact over Danny’s shoulder. It’s downright unsettling.

Then Rusty pulls away and for a horrid moment Danny thinks Linus might try to embrace him. The withering glare he shoots Linus’ direction does the trick, keeping an appropriate amount of distance between them. Linus’ shit-eating grin doesn’t falter as he says, “Hey, you don’t have to be jealous.”

Rusty and Danny reply in unison, “What?”

“Nothing,” Linus cowers under the combined force of their chastising, just like the good old days. “Didn’t Rusty tell you I was staying here?”

“He did,” Danny acknowledges, but the knowledge that Linus is technically in the same building is very different from actually seeing him in the shower robe, Aloha shirt, and cargo shorts he’s wearing. He looks like a twenty year old business major on spring break, and while Danny has no clue how old Linus actually is, he has to hope it’s older than _twenty._ “I see you’re taking full advantage of the facilities.”

“Right,” Linus says, bemused. “I offered to pay for a room, but Rusty wouldn’t let me.”

Danny looks to Rusty for confirmation, who shrugs. “Of course not. What kind of a friend would that make me? At least you’re don’t get three massages a day like Basher.”

“You massage Basher?” Danny teases.

Rusty says, “My _masseuses_ massage Basher. As much as he wants, all he has to do is ask.” It seems like an intensely weird way to phrase such a benevolent gift for a friend, but Danny doesn’t want to come off as homophobic (or jealous). He bites his tongue and gives Rusty a banal smile instead of asking if Basher gets a happy ending.

Shifting between his feet awkwardly, Linus interrupts to ask Danny, “Are you staying here too?”

Danny glances at Rusty, testing the water. “I just came to check the place out.”

“You should stay,” Rusty blurts out, surprising all three of them. Danny raises an eyebrow but before he can accept or decline, Rusty nods. “You’re staying.”

“I’m staying,” Danny echoes. A grin stretches across Linus’ face, like his divorced parents just told him they’re rekindling their marriage.

“Anywhere you like,” says Rusty. “There’s an open room on Linus’ floor.”

Danny strokes his chin. “Where’s Basher’s room?”

 

 

When they return to the lobby the clerk from earlier is nowhere to be found, much to Danny’s disappointment. He would never want someone’s apathy for their job to get them fired; he’s a big fan of disloyal employees. Disloyal employees are crucial to half the heists they pull anyway.

The new concierge checks him into a room two down from Basher’s, and Rusty clearly wants to accompany him up but a guest concern pulls him away. Danny waves his apologetic frown off, returning to the elevator alone.

His room is smaller than the penthouse but just as lush, with a real dracaena by the window, soaking up the sunset’s orange light. Danny pockets a bar of black soap to scratch his criminal itch, and spreads verbena lotion all over his palms and wrists before deciding that he doesn’t like the smell.

It’s hard to imagine Rusty touring a soap store to pick out the toiletries for his hotel guests. The old Rusty probably just delegated the task like he’d delegated every single other task related to hotel management, because he and Danny had a million other things that they’d rather do.

Danny collapses onto the foam mattress without taking his boots off, and fantasizes about a nap. He’s got nobody to report to: Saul hasn’t called him since the cowboy job and Reuben is in this very hotel, taking advantage of Rusty’s hospitality just like Danny.

 _What kind of friend would that make me?_ bounces around Danny’s skull like a ping pong ball. He kicks off his shoes, focuses on his breathing, and closes his eyes against thoughts of work or of Rusty.

The peace lasts for about five minutes. Danny leaps out of bed, restlessness and irritating biting at his heels. But before he can make it out the door, someone knocks.

Danny crosses the room and discovers Linus on the other side of his door, still running on vacation time and dingy sandals. “I need to talk to you,” Linus breathes. “Is Rusty in there?”

“No,” Danny says, throwing a glance behind himself to check. He does them both the service of not asking why Rusty would be in here. “Something wrong?”

Linus looks like he’s holding a small frog in his mouth. “No,” he steps inside. The door slides closed. “Yes. Sort of. Something’s wrong… with me.”

“Oh,” Danny feels queasy, suddenly wishing Rusty _were_ here. As much as he likes Linus, the person best suited to handle the kid’s mood swings is certainly not Danny. “You’re sick?”

“No,” Linus winces. “You have to promise not to judge me.”

He blinks. “You understand I can’t promise that.”

Linus exhales, hands sitting high on his hips as his eyes dart around the room. “Fine, well… fine. Three nights ago I was at the bar with Rusty and Basher, and I got a little turned around on the way back to my room, and I saw one of the housekeeping people get into this elevator at the end of the hall. Like, a service elevator.”

Danny’s eyebrow arches with impatient disinterest.

“But the guy dropped a box of gloves so I went forward to tell him. And right before I caught up to him, the doors closed behind him and he left.”

“You kept the gloves?”

“No, I left them— that’s not important,” Linus groans.

“What kind of thief are you?”

“What the hell am I gonna do with a hundred latex gloves? Danny, that isn’t the point. Point is when the doors opened, I saw the inside of the elevator.” Linus folds his arms over his chest. “No cameras.”

“... And that _is_ important?”

Linus looks back at the door behind him and locks it, and then deadbolts it a second later. He turns around to face Danny, fingers trembling. “There’s a service elevator in this place that doesn’t have any cameras.”

If anyone else were to say something like this, Danny would take it as a proposition or a threat. But Linus isn’t bold enough for either. “I’m not following.”

“Look at it this way,” Linus almost pleads. “If the Lacuna belonged to anyone else, what would _you_ do if there was a service elevator with no cameras?”

Realization sinks in finally; Danny can’t help but be impressed. “You wanna rob this hotel.”

“Yeah,” Linus says.

“Rusty’s hotel.”

“Yes.” The kid’s breath is shallow with relief and regret, like a sinner confessing to a priest. “I know that’s messed up, I know, but I can’t stop thinking about how it’s kind of a glaring flaw in the security system here. And if we could get housekeeping costumes— uh, I mean, uniforms— it would just be such an easy job.”

Danny can hear a thought howling at him to tell Linus off. It sounds like either Isabel or tinnitus. “It would ruin Rusty’s job.”

“I know,” Linus says, aggrieved.

“He’s got a second chance for himself.”

“I know. I’m terrible.”

“We’d have to check if the Lacuna is insured properly.”

“Yeah… what?” Linus stops short, dropping his arms in shock. “You would—”

“ _You_ would,” Danny points out.

“You just said it would ruin Rusty’s second chance!”

“Not if we’re careful Rusty doesn’t find out.” Danny’s head is spinning at the possibilities of conducting a new job, but that grounds him for an uncomfortable moment of guilt. “You think he’ll mind?”

They’re both silent for a minute, then Linus says, “I think the old Rusty would be disappointed if we didn’t.” It’s a bold-faced lie clearly built to distract from Linus’ own involvement in the inception of the plan. Danny has never been more proud.

 

 

Danny’s hands still smell like verbena when they’re done trying to pick the lock on the door marked ‘Management Only’. He stands back to let Linus have a turn, wordlessly relenting after an embarrassing three minutes.

Linus bends forward and unlocks it in thirteen seconds.

“Show off,” Danny mumbles, probably a little too loud. Linus doesn’t reply until they’re inside Rusty’s office and they can both breathe easier.

Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to share his mini-fridge liquor with Linus, but they had to wait until they were sure Rusty would be asleep. Besides, neither of them are drunk enough to cause a scene. They’re only tipsy enough to break into their friend’s room to get information on his hotel so they can rob it.

Danny narrows his eyes. “Are you 21?”

Linus’ expression purses up like someone’s fed him a lemon. It’s the same face he made when Danny asked if he’d ever had scotch, and the same as two minutes later when they’d tried the best the mini-fridge had to offer. “Is that a joke? No, Danny, of course I’m not 21.”

“Right,” Danny mumbles. He decides he’s going to believe that that means Linus is a baby-faced virgin in his thirties, and not actually a legal minor. Not that Danny hasn’t committed worse crimes than giving a twenty-year-old liquor. Come to think of it, he was committing worse crimes when he was twenty.

Linus locks the door behind them and stumbles over to the desk; Danny pretends he doesn’t see and focuses on making as straight a beeline as he can to the bookshelf. There are dozens of books on business, stacks of bathroom reader magazines, and a file cabinet with a combination lock. Danny is certain Rusty has never touched any of the books, but the files give him pause— would Rusty even remember the combination now?

Regardless, Danny remembers it. He plugs in Rusty’s parents’ birth-years with angry, short punches, and the safe opens for him easily. “Ha,” he crows. “I unlocked it.”

“Nice,” Linus says from his spot at the desk, where he’s sitting at Rusty’s computer. Danny rolls his eyes. “I unlocked this too, but it’s because his password is on a sticky note on the monitor. Why bother having a password?”

“Be nice, he’s healing,” Danny chides Linus, although privately he agrees. “See if you can get details on their insurance.”

“Okay,” Linus says, but the tapping on the keyboard doesn’t resume. “Danny, doesn’t this break two of your rules?”

Danny stops where he’s hovering over a file with blueprints to a parkade. He swears he remembers this exact layout, but he never would have expected Rusty to keep something like this. He lowers himself to sit on the floor as gracefully as he can, mostly wanting to be out of Linus’ line of sight. “Yeah,” he says, so quietly Linus can’t hear it.

“Don’t hurt anybody,” Linus continues. “And don’t steal from anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”

“I know the rules,” Danny snaps.

“Well, I’m not sure Rusty deserves it.”

The hardwood is cold, and Danny craves rough, itchy carpet. He stays seated there anyway, closing his eyes. He might be hungover tomorrow, and they barely drank at all.

Times like this make Danny feel inescapably old; he isn’t fifty yet but in four years, he will be. And what’s going to follow that milestone; a series of midlife crises leading him to early retirement alone? He wishes, suddenly and bitterly, that he could get a second chance like Rusty has. Even the thought makes him feel sick to his stomach with guilt.

‘You’re right,’ Danny means to say, but what comes out is “I miss him.”

Linus doesn’t respond. Somewhere in this room an analog clock is ticking away faithfully, counting down the seconds until dawn. It is concrete evidence that Rusty never spent a second in this office before the accident, because he used to hate the sound of a ticking clock more than anything else. He said it reminded him of a dripping faucet, and that machines shouldn’t get to have pulses like that.

“We can’t rob this place,” Danny finally says, sitting up so he can see Linus, face lit up by the computer screen. “We can’t even rob any of the shitty staff, or the guests.” His hand curls around the bar of soap in his pocket, folded up in smooth paper. “It would break his heart to know that his friends were working against him.”

If only Tess could hear him now.

Linus, thankfully, doesn’t mention the Benedict job. He just rests his chin on his hand thoughtfully and stares at Danny, a little cross-eyed. “I miss him too. But at least he isn’t… you know… really gone. He’s still around.”

In the sober light of day Danny would nod and swallow his shame, but now he shakes his head. “It’s different now. He’s not… he doesn’t know me, Linus. _Me_.”

“He’s still Rusty,” Linus tries to reason, but it’s a losing battle. Almost everything that made Rusty himself is gone, leaving behind a man who walks and talks and looks like Danny’s best friend.

But the new Rusty doesn’t always have a snack in hand, and he can’t finish Danny’s sentences, and the way they look at each other is tremulous and lined with _something_ but they don’t live inside each other’s heads the way they used to. Danny suddenly misses Rusty more than he can bear.

Someone somewhere with a very mean sense of humour must hear his prayers, because before he can bare any more of his soul to Linus, the door rattles as someone unlocks it from the other side.

“Oh shit,” yelps Linus, frantically slamming his hands onto the keyboard to try to lock the computer. Danny barely has enough time to scramble to his feet before the door opens wide, and light from the hallway shines in.

Rusty steps into his dark office and flicks a switch on the wall, staring at Danny and Linus with eyes the size of baseballs. “What the hell are you two doing in here?”

A flimsy excuse involving a missing box of a hundred latex gloves comes to mind, but there’s genuine distrust on Rusty’s face and it turns Danny’s stomach. He’s tired of living like this; of pretending to be a travel agent just so that Rusty doesn’t remember who he has been his entire life.

“What are _you_ doing in here?” Linus squeaks from behind the desk. If he’s trying to sound intimidating he’s failing utterly, and truth be told, Danny had honestly forgotten about him the second Rusty walked in.

“This is my office,” Rusty says. His gaze flicks between the bright computer and the open file cabinet, and finally lands on Danny again. “What’s going on?”

Danny steels himself. “Linus, get out.” Linus doesn’t have to be told twice, dashing around the desk and slinking past Rusty with his head hung low. Rusty doesn’t hug him goodbye this time. “We broke in here.”

“Obviously,” Rusty seethes, shaking the key in his hand at Danny. If Danny didn’t feel so overcome with guilt, he’d be a little turned on by the fire in Rusty’s eyes right now— but as it is, he knows better. “Why?”

“We were drunk, and we…” Danny frowns. Out with it. “I was drunk, and I wanted to make a plan to rob this hotel.”

Rusty steps back, jaw falling open in shock. Even though Danny knew that this had to happen eventually, he still feels like the worst guy in the world for putting that look on his best friend’s face. Rusty is appropriately dumbfounded, and Danny can do nothing but stand in somber silence and watch as Rusty rebuilds his knowledge of their relationship.

“You were going to steal from me?”

“No we weren’t,” Danny says, decisive and harsh. This conversation should probably happen when they’re both sober but he’s cowardly enough to be grateful for the liquid courage.

“From the— from my business.”

“No. We weren’t.”

“You just said you were.”

“We thought we were, but then the kid talked me down and I realized I could never go through with something like that anyway.” Danny pauses. “Not if it would hurt you.”

Rusty runs both hands over his scalp, tousling his short blond hair up into a catastrophe. It’s shorter than it used to be, but longer than when Danny first saw him in the hospital. He shakes his head and closes his eyes like a child shooing a nightmare away; then he runs his hands down over his forehead and cheeks and jaw again, grounding himself. Danny is transfixed watching him and when Rusty finally opens his eyes again he catches him staring. Danny doesn’t look away.

“So, that’s…” Rusty huffs quietly. “That’s what you do for a living?”

Danny bites the bullet. “That’s what we do for a living.”

 

 

Danny remembers the first thing he ever stole with photographic precision. Every time he shares the story, Rusty shoots him a look that plainly tells him he’s full of crap— and for all he knows, he might be. There’s a broad chance he poached the memory from a scene on television, or that he’s idealized what he _wanted_ for his first theft and now, decades later, a dream has become indistinguishable from fact.

He remembers sitting on a firm chair, legs too short to touch the floor. The setting was some waiting room in some doctor’s office, undoubtedly long-lost or at the least remodeled. There was a tall man seated next to him— not his father, although that absence is not of particular note. Danny recalls the man standing to leave, and how as he rose from his seat his wallet fell from his open pocket. And how a second later, the wallet found its way into Danny’s pocket.

The worn brown leather burnt a hole in Danny’s jeans the rest of the afternoon until finally his conscience got the best of him and he surrendered the stolen item to his father, who had yelled at him. Then the wallet went into his pocket, and Danny kept thinking about what he’d done and what the response was for the next thirty-nine years. Not ‘ _don’t steal_ ’, period, but ‘ _don’t steal from anyone who doesn’t deserve it’._

Every time he reminds Debbie of that story she laughs and says that there’s no way their dad returned the wallet. It took Danny a few decades to see the humour, but he gets it now. Thieves are thieves are thieves, in a way that no person with a moral compass could ever intimately understand. It’s more than an addiction or anything chemical; once he realized that he had the ability to colour outside the lines, Danny, like every other thief, never saw the point of staying happily within them. It explains why he and Tess never reached their happily ever after, and it explains why Debbie does a job within every job. Living within their means when they know how to change the system is never going to be enough.

But none of that makes it into his explanation for Rusty.

They tell Linus first, but only because he’s waiting outside the room. Danny nearly hits him with the door but the kid scampers to his feet in time, arms jerking like he wants to salute them.

For a pickpocket, Linus has always been shit at taking non-verbal cues. “Rusty—”

“I told him,” Danny interrupts before Linus can make the situation any worse. His eyes widen, and Danny returns the look of baby-deer-panic with an eye-roll. “He knows.”

“Oh,” Linus bleats.

Rusty demands, “You’re in on all this too?” but he doesn’t sound angry enough to call the cops, only disappointed. He rounds on Danny. “What about Basher?”

“Basher’s munitions,” Danny says. “Do we have—”

“Reuben?”

“Yes, Reuben. Do we have to—”

_"Isabel?"_

“No. Do we have to talk about this here?”

Rusty grabs a fistful of his collar and Danny could swear his heart rattles against his ribs. They’ve been closer but Danny has never been so aware of his warmth like this. He’s sure Rusty’s mouth has never looked like this before; he finds a new appreciation for fluorescent hotel lighting.

“Come on,” Rusty growls, dragging him down the hallway and Danny’s blood is singing until Rusty calls out, “You too, Linus.”

 

 

Fortunately, the master suite Rusty pulls his hostages into is empty; Danny half-expects to find the police waiting there or worse, John Frazier. But he hasn’t actually confessed to any crimes yet, and so no one greets them except a card welcoming them to the Lacuna and a button fern hanging in the window.

Linus walks over to the couch like the carpet is made of eggshells, sitting down with all the ease of a man awaiting a death penalty verdict. Danny follows him but stands by the window instead, fondling the round leaves of the plant with one hand and pressing the other against the cold glass to try to calm his nerves.

Rusty glares daggers at Danny, but doesn’t break away from his phone call as he asks the concierge to patch him through to two separate rooms. Danny can’t imagine waking Reuben up from his beauty sleep for anything other than the apocalypse. Linus frets with the material of the couch until he catches himself doing it, and then he shoves his hands between his knees in shame.

“Alright,” Rusty says, hanging up his phone violently. “Okay. Has this whole thing been a con?”

The question hits Danny hard, and Linus has the same reaction. “What?”

“Has this entire thing been some sort of,” Rusty flaps his hand around, “con? Do I even know you two?”

It would be funny except for how devastatingly sad it is. “Of course you do,” Danny finds it difficult to breathe all of a sudden. “Of course. You’re my...”

“You’re his best friend,” Linus picks up the end of Danny’s sentence, and Danny isn’t sure if he’s embarrassed or pleased. He settles on grateful.

“Okay,” Rusty repeats, but they can both see the doubt on his face. “And what about you?”

“We get along alright,” Linus says meekly.

“How can I know you’re telling me the truth?”

“You can’t,” Danny says. Rusty turns to him, and Danny pulls his palm away from the glass. “But we are.”

“What do I do?” demands Rusty, leaving them both at a loss until he groans and clarifies, “What do I do, on the team, what’s my job? You said Basher is munitions? What is that, like, guns?”

“You and Danny run the heists. You’re each other’s right hand,” Linus says earnestly, and Danny and Rusty exchange a look that speaks volumes. “That’s how you got hurt— you were on a job, and Danny wasn’t there.”

“Thanks, Linus,” Danny scoffs, gratitude evaporating. “It wasn’t _my_ fault.”

“Right,” Rusty nods and ignores Danny entirely. “You told me that it wasn’t an accident. I’m guessing what Frank told me wasn’t exactly the truth either?”

Danny frowns. “No. I tried to tell you as much as I could, but we all agreed it was better to give you a second chance.”

“What, at failing to run a hotel?” Rusty suddenly pales. “Wait. Does that mean I’ve always been this bad at my job?”

Danny thinks of Topher Grace pitching lamps from the balcony of the twenty-sixth floor, and Rusty emailing his hotel manager money transfers from countries neither of them had ever visited. “Well,” he tries to cajole Rusty, “this wasn’t really your job. I mean, it was, but you didn’t care about it.”

“I didn’t even know you still owned this place,” Linus chimes in.

“Right,” Danny nods. “You just used it to have a salary number for your taxes. I mean, I’ve never even been here before… none of us have.”

“And now you want to rob it,” Rusty laughs. It catches both Linus and Danny off-guard, but there isn’t anything they can do or say in their own defence. “What would you even steal?”

“We never got that far,” Danny confesses. “A breach in your security caught Linus’ eye.”

“What breach?”

“Nothing,” Linus mumbles.

Danny rolls his eyes again. “One of your service elevators doesn’t have any cameras so there’s an unguarded exit to the building.”

Rusty bites his lip. “Oh.”

“I mean, there’s a thousand ways to rob a hotel but if Linus noticed it after staying here for a week, you might want to get that changed. Especially with the kind of staff you’ve got here.”

“Right,” Rusty mutters. “But if you were going to take something like the payroll, then you would need the cameras off everywhere in the lobby, not just one elevator.”

“So hire an IT guy you trust, and have him check the cameras every few days against the records to make sure nobody’s moving anything.” Danny sighs. “No one is going to rob your hotel, Rusty.”

“Unless someone turned all the cameras off everywhere in the lobby,” says Rusty.

Danny reaches up very slowly to pinch the inside of his own wrist, just to check that he isn’t blackout-drunk-dreaming. It stings, but the pain isn’t enough to override the hope welling up in his brain, threatening to spill over. “What?”

“I’m saying, yes.”

“What?” Linus echoes from the couch.

“You’re saying yes?”

“Yes,” Rusty steps forward, “to whatever plan you have. You and I can run the heist together. It’ll be just like the good old days that everyone keeps telling me were so great.”

“Rusty, this is your second chance at life,” Danny tries to reason with him instead of following his instincts, which are telling him to kick Linus out and drop to his knees. “This is your hotel.”

“I hate this hotel,” Rusty says passionately, and pushes over the welcoming card on the desk with his knuckles. “Who keeps real plants in every single room? What kind of business model is that?”

“I thought it was a nice touch,” Linus pipes up.

“Thanks,” says Rusty. “I didn’t make that decision, and I don’t know the guy who did. And I don’t know if he’s coming back, but this… this feels good. This feels right. So maybe if we do this, and I work with you guys again, I’ll start to remember. Or at least I’ll start to feel like… I don’t know. Like myself.”

Danny stays paralyzed by the window as he watches Rusty, drowning in relief. Then he notices that Linus and Rusty are both staring at him expectantly, waiting for an answer of some kind, and Danny’s brain speeds to catch up with his heart. “Yes,” he sputters. “However we can help.”

“Good,” Rusty grins, sharp and bright. Danny has never felt more out of his depth, and then to pour gasoline into the bonfire, Rusty adds, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go call Isabel.”

 

 

“He found out” are Danny’s first words to Debbie when she picks up the phone the next morning. He feels calmer after six hours of sleep— no, not calm. Sedated, maybe. For all its allure and finery, the Lacuna only offers complimentary brewed coffee. If he starts twitching he might have to stoop to Starbucks espresso later, but for now he can at least be grateful the coffee isn’t instant.

Debbie sounds more lucid than he feels. “About how much you want to bang him, or about what you do?”

“The latter.”

If he’s expecting sympathy, Debbie doesn’t deliver. “Of course he did. You know what comes up if you Google ‘Danny Ocean’? It was only a matter of time.”

“I told him about his… involvement too.”

“Now that’s new.” Debbie clicks her tongue and Danny sips his hotel coffee. “How’d he take it?”

“We’re going to rob his hotel.”

Silence descends over the phone call and a grin spreads across Danny’s cheeks. He can picture Debbie’s aghast face and the thought is sweet enough to make bitter coffee bearable. “Of course you are.”

“It was only a matter of time.”

“Insurance fraud?”

“Retracing his steps,” Danny corrects her. He’s sure his smile comes through in his voice but he can’t shove it down. “To try to jog his memory. Oh, yeah, I guess it’s also insurance fraud.”

“Well, aren’t you a good friend?” Danny hears non-descript rustling as she speaks, and curiosity possesses him. “It’ll be nice for you to catch up with Frazier.”

“Can’t wait to hear all about Claude,” Danny smiles. “You never did explain how you planted the jewels on him.”

“I didn’t think I had to. It was so easy, Linus could have done it.” Debbie halts. “We-ll… the first part, anyway. I’m not so sure he’d have been able to charm his way into Becker’s apartment.”

“Linus oozes charm. He’s a perfect honeypot.”

“That so? Is he seeing anyone?”

“Of course not,” Danny gags. “He’s a kid.”

“Right,” Debbie laughs, almost loudly enough that Danny doesn’t hear her loading a gun. But before he can demand to know what cool undercover heist she and Lou are tackling, she derails him. “When are you going to tell Rusty the other secret?”

Danny is glad she can’t see his face as he flushes with heat, and hangs up abruptly.

 

 

Danny finds Rusty outside with Basher, wasting away their afternoon by the pool. The unseasonable breeze, coupled with Basher’s ugly swim shorts, have managed to keep any prospective company out of sight.

The pool is one of the stops they missed on the tour, for reasons Rusty couldn’t have possibly remembered. Back when Rusty had first set up his cover story as a hotelier, one of his first stipulations was that every hotel _needed_ a pool. Danny disagreed; pools cost too much money to get and too much money to maintain. And in return all they attracted were professional swimmers and families with kids— neither of which added to the sex appeal of a hotel.

Rusty stood his stubborn ground and Danny didn’t put up a real fight; after all, it wasn’t like this place mattered. It was just what he put on his taxes so that when they got caught he could put on the airs of a business owner, a man of culture, and a respectable American citizen. Danny was never supposed to come here.

The water is luxurious and inviting, the icing on top of an already impressive cake. It’s empty, glittering surface undisturbed, and Danny can only imagine how much it costs per second to pump chlorine through the valves and drain away dead wasps. He approaches behind Basher’s chair with a grin and a joke on hand, but before he can say anything Danny catches a whiff of their conversation and he falters.

“Hey, Danny,” Rusty greets him. Even sweltering in paisley and chinos under the hot west coast sun, Rusty still looks like a ten out of five. Danny’s surprised he didn’t make the realization that his thing for Rusty is a _thing_ years earlier. Or rather, that he didn’t do anything about it, because the top two buttons of Rusty’s dress shirt are shamelessly undone and even though Danny has seen him wearing much less, he can’t tear his eyes away. “We were just talking about a job.”

For an instant Danny panics. _He knows, he knows, we’re fucked_ — until he remembers the events of last night again and calms. “Right,” he nods, disguising his uncertainty. The name he’d heard was not Ocean, but Toulour. “Which job?”

“Well, we covered the casinos already,” Basher answers, lifting his sunglasses to address Danny. Danny tries to swallow his jealousy at seeing Rusty and Basher sitting so close, forcing himself not to think about how close they’ve always been or about _three massages a day_. “I was just telling him about Isabel.”

It’s absurd of him to be disappointed that they told Rusty all the details, so Danny manages a smile. “You started without me?”

“I wanted to get a head start,” Rusty cocks his head to the side, revealing the length of his untanned throat. Danny is capital-F fucked. “I was hoping some of it would help me remember.”

“And?”

“Nothing,” Rusty smiles apologetically. “Nothing yet, anyway.”

“You’ll get it,” Basher assures him. Ugly possessiveness still has its claws in Danny’s chest, but Rusty’s look of earnest comfort helps a lot. He perches on the end of Rusty’s chair, basking in the noon warmth. “So, anyway… hang on, where was I?”

“Isabel went to visit LeMarc,” Rusty prompts him, taking a long sip from a lemonade Danny hadn’t noticed before.

“Right,” Basher beams. “You’ll never guess what happened next— it was like a proper spy movie. You took her to this safehouse where he was, and she already knew him. Get this. Her father.”

“No shit,” Rusty gapes, looking over at Danny for confirmation. “Did I know the whole time? Did… did she?”

“You’d have to ask her that yourself,” Danny smiles. “So, hang on, you haven’t even told him about the Bank job yet?”

“Reuben told me all about Bank over coffee this morning,” says Rusty. Just out of their eyelines, a woman exits the Lacuna’s changing room with two sons in tow, wearing sunglasses the size of CDs and not much else. Her children catapult towards the water, ruining the serenity and splashing everywhere. Danny wants to find it more irritating than he does. “He even showed me a great photo of you, Basher. Very patriotic.”

“Oh, sod off,” Basher whines, groaning and rolling his head back against the chair. “At least my disguise didn’t make me look like Jennifer Aniston.”

Rusty frowns. “What’s wrong with Jennifer Aniston?”

“Excuse me,” interrupts a stranger. They all turn in sync to see that it’s the woman whose children are currently playing two-man Marco Polo. “Do any of you have any suntan lotion I could borrow? I can’t find mine.”

She reaches up to push a hand through her dark hair, waves cascading back over her shoulder, and Danny and Basher both follow the motion with their chins. Five years ago Danny would have fallen in love with her for that sight alone; unfortunately for her, he’s a little distracted by a 5’11” blond who looks like Jennifer Aniston on his worst days.

Rusty is the only one unfazed, rummaging around in his bag and retrieving a small bottle. He passes it to Basher, who wipes the dopey look off his face and passes it on to the woman.

Her smile is bright and entirely directed at Basher. “Thank you so much.”

“No worries.” Basher makes an effort to sound less Eliza Doolittle and more James Bond. Danny adds that to his ongoing list of evidence suggesting that Basher’s dialect is entirely fake. “Do… er, do you need help putting it on?”

“If you’re offering…”

Basher scrambles to his feet and doesn’t spare a second to look back at Danny and Rusty. The woman leaves her purse and Basher leaves his sunglasses, and they move to a towel spread out across the grass. Danny averts his eyes to Rusty, who is already looking at him— the sight floods Danny with heat he can’t blame on the mid-day sun. “Go Basher,” he murmurs through a bright smile.

Rusty raises an eyebrow. “You’re not jealous?”

“Why would I be jealous?”

“Look at her.”

“I did,” Danny shrugs. One of the kids shrieks as his brother shoves water at him, but Danny keeps up his eye contact. He won’t look away until the lifeguard has to dive in. “Not my type.”

“I saw you looking at her,” Rusty accuses, and now Danny is the one raising his eyebrows curiously. “You don’t have to lie.”

“I’m not.” Then, for reasons completely unknown, he blurts out, “Are you jealous?”

“I’m not—” But before Danny can clarify, Rusty understands. He drops his glass down onto the table and sits up straighter, tension clearing. He sounds amused. “Of her? No.”

“Basher’s a very handsome guy.”

“Not my type,” Rusty says. He reaches for his lemonade again and drains the entire cup. Danny thinks something monumental is going to happen and he wishes he’d thought to bring gum; all he tastes like right now is the cigarette he smoked on the way over here. But Rusty leans past him to do something better than kiss him: his hand reaches past Danny to the woman’s unattended bag, and slips inside.

“Rusty,” Danny starts, a warning. But the woman is lying face-down well away from them, distracted by Basher’s stories of his homeland as he kneads sunscreen into her back. Rusty pulls back, his hand cupped around a gold bracelet that glints in the sun. “ _Rus_.”

“I want to remember,” Rusty says, arm wavering between the purse and his own body. If he wanted to, he could open his palm and drop the bracelet right into Danny’s lap. Danny wants him to. “This is what I’m good at, right?” He doesn’t wait for Danny to answer, finally pulling away to pocket the bracelet. “I want to know if I’ve still got it.”

Danny doesn’t have it in him to tell Rusty _‘you’ve still got it’._ Not after a brazen show like that. He swallows a dry gulp of air instead before asking, “So I guess that means you still want to steal from your own hotel?”

Rusty bites his lower lip, sucking it into his mouth. Danny regrets enabling Rusty’s return to his life of crime instead of encouraging him to follow what he was clearly born to do: softcore porn modeling. Rusty slides closer on their seat. “If you’ll teach me how we used to do it.”

A splash of water makes it up past the pool coping. It barely reaches Danny’s shoes but it serves as enough of a distraction that he realizes he probably shouldn’t fuck Rusty right through the cheap plastic chair, especially considering that they’re out in the open beside a public pool. And children. And Basher. “I’ll show you.”

 

 

(Later, Rusty drops the bracelet in the hotel’s lost and found.)

 

 

In a complete twist, it turns out that Rusty treats criminal activity with the same attentiveness that he gives to all his other methods of therapeutic recovery. He genuinely wants to remember his life, so Danny can do little but sit back and watch over the next few days as Rusty involves himself in every step of the process.

They plan the heist; it feels strange to plan out the details and choose the victim on their own, but of course, this time there’s no mysterious benefactor or friend of a friend holding onto a grudge. They haven’t been hired so there’s no restraints or rules to abide by. It is, at once, weird and weirdly freeing.

The victim is the Lacuna, and by extension, Rusty himself. They work out a two-pronged plan together, and as they go Danny teaches Rusty the old lingo he used to know, among other things. The first part of their plan is to free the hotel of its monetary burden; namely, the cash kept in the safe that only Rusty and a handful of high-level trusted employees can access. The bonds and stacks of bills total just over three-quarters of a million dollars, which is pretty good even split up between five guys. They only bring in a fifth at Rusty’s reminder that he doesn’t know how to rig the surveillance systems on his own.

The phone rings for a full sixty seconds before Livingston picks up, which is just embarrassing. Danny grimaces and turns away from Rusty’s curious gaze, holding up a finger as he prepares to lecture the hacker’s voicemail— but then Livingston picks up, right before Danny can lose his cool. “Oh, hey! How’s it going?”

Danny cuts right to the chase. “I have a job for you.” He hopes it makes him sound like a cool mafia boss. “You free?”

“Uh, just a second,” Livingston squeaks, and then presumably covers the receiver as his voice goes muffled for a moment. When he talks clearly again, he sounds as aggrieved as usual. “I’m working.”

“What? For who?”

“For the FBI?”

Danny forgot. “ _Still?_ ”

“I can take my lunch break early,” Livingston offers, and more muffled voices and rustling comes over the line. He drops his voice down to a whisper. “What’s the cut?”

“Not everything in life is about money,” scolds Danny.

“Oh. Then what are we taking?”

“Money.”

“Danny,” Livingston says. “I only have an hour-long lunch break.”

“You poor soul,” Danny hisses. “Fifteen thousand, four hundred.”

For a beat Livingston doesn’t reply at all, and Danny visualizes reaching through the phone line to throttle him. Finally he says, “Sorry, my boss just walked by. Okay, I’ll help you— on one condition.”

“What?”

“I’m not going by my real name anymore,” Livingston whispers. “It’s too risky. From now on, you can call me Bandit.”

Now Danny really is going to throttle him. He spares a glance at Rusty, whose legs are folded up underneath him on the couch. He’s holding a mug of hot chocolate, with a thick soft crust of what used to be solid miniature marshmallows. The sight only calms Danny a little. “Nobody is going to call you that.”

“People already do!”

“Who? Roman Nagel?”

“Lots of people.”

“Let me rephrase,” Danny snorts. “ _I’m_ not going to call you that.”

“Respect is an important part of every working relationship,” Livingston parrots at him nervously.

“Is that what they teach you these days at the FBI?”

“I have learned something, actually,” Livingston sniffs. “The importance of anonymity.”

“Hey, Bandit, do you keep that cowboy hat with you at all times?” Danny squints. “Are you wearing it right now?”

“I’m not going to sit here and be mocked, Danny, I’m on—”

“Yes, how tragic for you to have a fifty-eight minute lunch break.”

Livingston sighs. “When do you need me?”

“Job’s in two weeks,” Danny says, and then frowns at Livingston’s sharp intake of breath. “What? Do you have horseback riding lessons?”

“Close. I have a court appearance that Saturday. Any chance you could postpone the job?”

“No…” Danny eyes Rusty. Technically, yes they could, but he’s not doing this for the money anyway. He’s doing this for Rusty’s sake. “What if I gave you my share? You’d get thirty?” He lowers his voice, but Rusty still hears him and jerks his chin up to stare.

“I can’t,” Livingston says sadly. “Sorry, Danny.”

“It’s alright. Enjoy your lunch break.” He hangs up, trying to shake off the weight of Rusty’s gaze; it’s hard to do, so he finally just turns to face his friend. Rusty puts his hot chocolate down expectantly. “We need a new eye in the sky.”

Rusty hums. “Would Reuben know anybody?”

“That was who Reuben knew.”

“Would Debbie?”

 

 

After griping about being called thrice in one week (ever the caring sister), Debbie tells Danny and Rusty that she’s sending over her best. Their new eye in the sky is scheduled to arrive in two days, but there’s lots of moving pieces to organize until then. Reuben is sitting this one out, apparently content to enjoy the Lacuna’s facilities while he still can. Danny expects he’ll make himself scarce before the heist to avoid arousing suspicion. Basher’s job is to create a power outage so they have time to reroute the camera feeds to fake channels, and Linus has taken on his own mission.

Which leaves Rusty and Danny alone together— Danny’s favourite oxymoron. Many parts of their planning are happily, painfully similar to the good old days. Danny cherishes the years that he and Rusty spent getting to know each other as barely-teenagers; he only wishes Rusty could cherish the memories in the same way.

One notable difference between making a plan back then and making one now is that Rusty never used to have any questions. Now he questions Danny on every single move, expertly toeing the line between adorable and annoying. Most of Danny’s answers require stories being retold; he suspects that’s part of the reason why Rusty keeps asking. He regales him with all the years he’s missed, explaining the difference between a Kansas City Shuffle and the Charlotte Motor Speedway catastrophe.

Throughout it all, Rusty never yawns or even glances away, rapt at even the smallest detail. At a speed that surprises everyone, Rusty starts to pick up some of the language that he and Danny have cobbled together over the years. It’s a mixture of colloquial slang, industry terms, and inside jokes. The first time Danny hears Rusty say “Ella Fitzgerald”, he drops his glass onto the countertop, hard.

It doesn’t break, but it’s a close thing. Rusty really went all out for his penthouse glassware. He gives Danny an odd look, as if he’s worried he’s caused offence. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Danny nods, reaching for his glass and draining it before he can do something like drop it again. “I… yeah, you got it.”

Rusty’s beaming smile is bright enough to block out every star in the sky; Danny’s only human so he has to shield his eyes and look away. It’s no use at all because Rusty simply gets up from where he’s lounging across the couch and crosses the room, practically prowling towards the island.

Danny says a silent prayer to whoever sold Rusty pants two sizes too small, and pours himself another drink. Rusty clinks his empty glass against Danny’s, fortunately unaware of his licentious thoughts. “Fill me up?”

Not trusting himself to talk, Danny just reaches for the decanter and pours at least four fingers of juice. It’s an awful waste of a beautiful glass carafe that should be filled with wine, or bourbon, or really anything other than juice. Even in their earliest years they were drinking each other under the table, building up their tolerances with vodka reminiscent of rubbing alcohol and beer that was half piss, half water. Danny can’t believe the cruel irony that liquor has forsaken them now, when he really needs it most.

He supposes technically he could drink, but that would be rude seeing as Rusty has been forced to embrace sobriety. Danny purses his lips around a mouthful of freshly-squeezed, mildly disappointing juice and swallows. “Technically we don’t need an Ella Fitzgerald,” Rusty continues, more sure of himself now. Danny forces himself to stop ogling the line of his friend’s throat. _Eyes up_. “Not if we have a… a Lakitu.”

That derails Danny’s sybarite fantasies. “A what?”

“Instead of replacing all the feeds with a loop, maybe we could just move them a little bit every day until the cameras can’t catch anything at all,” Rusty explains.

Danny hums. “That would jeopardize your insurance claim. If it wasn’t your hotel I’d say maybe, but we can’t risk it.”

“The loop won’t jeopardize my insurance claim?”

“We won’t have it running for that long; we’ll revert to the real feed after Basher does his work and the job is done. That way you don’t need an alibi for two weeks, you just need an alibi for one night.”

“Gotcha.” Rusty sucks in a shallow breath, and says, “Can I tell you something? Planning all this illegal stuff is sort of a turn on.”

The confession blindsides Danny; ‘ _sure, you can tell me anything_ ’ dies on the tip of his tongue. Now that he knows to look for it he can see the evidence that Rusty’s telling the truth; even the way he’s holding his glass tightly seems like a signal. He’s leaning in more than he should be, and they can’t even blame it on any substance except cold, hard crime.

Danny has never wanted to fuck someone so badly. It’s happily, painfully similar to the good old days; when they were young and Rusty wore graphic tees and sandals and Danny used to dream about him every time he took a shower. He puts his glass down on the counter (quietly, this time) and watches the muscles move in Rusty’s jaw. He practically begs, “Can I take you out for a drink? A real drink?”

“I can’t,” Rusty says, grimacing. But he doesn’t lean away, and his eyes are still dark— not a no, then, but a no to the drink. “They said it might be really bad.”

‘They’, of course, referring to Rusty’s team of medical professionals that Danny is pretty sure Saul has added to his own legal payroll. Rusty is still on a controlled diet, so he can’t get drunk and he can’t have as much sugar as Danny knows he wants to have. He’s in occupational and cognitive therapy and according to the email blasts things are getting better: while he hasn’t remembered anything old, he hasn’t forgotten anything new. His physical injuries are healing too, bones all set and scars mostly fading.

Danny is suddenly struck by relief, and by pride. He moves around the island to approach Rusty, who stays stock-still. He’s the most beautiful man Danny has ever seen; hell, he gives Tess more than a run for her money. Danny drags his hand along the countertop until it’s only a couple inches away from Rusty’s hand. Their feet are only a foot apart. They’re facing each other, mouths both caught between smiles and earnest desire.

“I have Milk Duds,” says Danny, cowering at the last possible moment. “And Twizzlers.”

Rusty laughs quietly. “Daniel Ocean, are you trying to lure me off my nutritional plan with forbidden candy?”

“Is it working?” Rusty’s tongue darts out to lick his lips, like he can already taste the candy. “It’s working.”

Danny’s self-assured tone makes Rusty roll his eyes, but Danny watches him carefully until finally he relents. Relief settles into his chest, calming a fear that he didn’t know he was still hanging onto. “Okay,” Rusty shrugs, eyes twinkling. “One drink.”

 

 

Half an hour later, they’re halfway done the bottle.

Despite all the talk of taking Rusty out on the town, Danny is more than content to spend the night in his own room. It doesn’t matter so much that it’s smaller than the penthouse, or that he doesn’t like the smell of the hand cream in the bathroom. Nothing really matters except Rusty finally lowering his inhibitions.

He’s happier about the Milk Duds than the scotch, and the look on his face when Danny unearths a bag of AirHeads is downright embarrassing. Danny tosses the candy his way but Rusty reaches to catch it too late; the bag lands square in his lap. Danny laughs, awed and shocked; Rusty hasn’t been a lightweight since he was twenty.

“Shut up,” Rusty jabs an accusing finger at him. “I’m not drunk.”

“I am,” admits Danny, not bothering to hide his smile. The soda isn’t doing much to help the taste of liquor, so on his next glass he forgoes it entirely, opting for neat scotch.

Rusty sniffs. “I can hold my drinks okay.”

“I know,” Danny soothes, sipping his drink and wincing. Maybe the soda was doing more than he gave it credit for. “You want another?”

“Uh huh,” says Rusty through his teeth, struggling to rip open the bag. Finally he succeeds, tearing it down the middle; sugar and sour sanding flies everywhere. The localized blizzard mostly gets on Rusty, although Danny is sure that he’ll find some on the sheets later. “Ugh! And this is a nice suit, too!”

Danny brings him a freshly shaken whisky sour, trying not to laugh at Rusty’s misery. Still, he can’t resist the insult: “It’s not a nice suit.”

Rusty pouts at him, trading his empty glass off; Danny sets it on the floor and sits on the sugary bed beside him. They clink their glasses together, and instead of offering him cheers Rusty just sips his cocktail and smiles. “You don’t like it?”

The suit is androgynous out of laziness, or maybe that’s just how it looks on Rusty’s slim frame. The dark fabric is nothing special but it makes his red shirt look luxuriant in the dim light. His pants are still blessedly tight, stretched over his thighs. Danny sees a fleck of sugar Rusty hasn’t swept off yet, and he resists the urge to lean over and clean it off himself. With his tongue. “I didn’t say that,” he mutters. Rusty’s smile is triumphant. “You look good.”

They toast each other again, or maybe they’re just sitting so close that when they raise their glass there’s not enough space for them to stay apart. Rusty’s eyes are darker than usual. “I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“You said the old Rusty wasn’t into men,” Rusty lowers his voice like it’s an illicit secret. Danny moves closer instinctually. “How did you know?”

And now it’s Danny’s turn to be embarrassed. “I didn’t. I always suspected but I didn’t know for sure.” _Suspected_ is a charitable verb that glosses over years of friendship and stolen looks and inappropriate thoughts. _Hoped_ would be more apt. “Isabel says she knew all along that you were bi, but that could just be her trying to save face.”

“She’s very attractive,” Rusty shrugs with the shoulder closer to Danny, although they have nearly turned to face each other on the bed. The last thing Danny wants to talk about is Isabel. “Maybe I made an exception.”

Danny scrunches up his face. “Maybe.”

“She and Tess got together pretty quickly, right?”

Danny mentally corrects himself— Isabel is the second-last thing he wants to talk about in bed. Tess is the last. But Rusty’s smile isn’t malicious, and Danny never could keep anything a secret from him anyway. Maybe that’s the reason Reuben and Saul always prefer for them to take jobs together; to Rusty, Danny’s an open book. Vice versa used to be true as well, but these days Rusty is full of surprises.

“That’s right,” Danny grumbles, draining his glass. When he swallows and opens his eyes, Rusty is fidgeting with a torn piece of candy wrapper. “It’s fine, I just don’t usually talk about it.”

Rusty hums. “Did we talk about it already?”

“Oh yeah,” Danny smirks. “You called me the second you found out, and you were just as shocked as I was. Not mad, just… they never said anything before that; neither of them ever mentioned it, and then all of a sudden Tess had a date and I was supposed to pretend I didn’t know it was Isabel.”

“You two weren’t together anymore?”

Danny shakes his head, and he means to say some hackneyed statement about marriage. He means to be trite but what comes out, all at once, is the full story of Daniel and Therese Ocean, _née_ Miles.

To his credit, Rusty is an avid listener; he pours himself a new whisky sour every time Tess and Danny get remarried but if he’s wasted it doesn’t show on his face. Danny doesn’t go into detail about any of the houses or the honeymoons, but he does mention that more often than not it was Rusty who picked him up after prison, not his wife.

Danny struggles to remember the early days, which is half-relieving and half-concerning. Relief, because Tess has clearly moved on ( _Mrs._ Lahiri) so it’s reassuring that he can apparently move on too; concern because really? Is he really this old? He used to adore the style of her wedding dress so much and now he can only remember that it was white.

Thankfully Rusty stops him as Danny is bumbling his way through details about the engagement rings (the first ones). He never has this much trouble remembering the details of a past heist. Rusty’s hand finds his arm, squeezing around the muscle right above his elbow. Danny stops, surprised into obedience.

“That must have been hard for me to watch,” says Rusty.

“You thought it was funny,” Danny scoffs. “And besides, we figured our shit out eventually. She’s happy and—”

“No, I meant it must have been hard for me to watch the two of you.” Rusty’s grip is warm and solid even through the fabric of Danny’s shirt. “Since I like you so much.”

The room pressurizes. Danny can’t find the air to breathe, let alone words to speak.

Rusty must be drunk now. He lets go of Danny’s arm and bites his lower lip, leaning in. It would be so easy to kiss him, but then Danny wouldn’t get to hear anymore of his confession. “And I’ve only known you for two months and I like you this much, so I can only imagine how it used to be.”

“Rus…”

“I have another question.” His voice drops lower. Danny thinks he’d say yes to any question Rusty could possibly ask right now. If Rusty wanted him to give away state secrets, Danny would gladly turn himself in for treason. “What about the old Danny Ocean? Did you ever suspect that he was into men?”

When they were twenty-four and twenty-two Rusty had kissed Danny— not on the lips or anything, just slack against his cheek and jaw after they’d won a crooked game of poker and walked away with more money than they could hold. The only thing stopping Danny from kissing Rusty— _properly—_ was the duffel bags of cash in their hands that would make them an easy target for even the most amateur pickpocket. They hailed a cab back to their motel, where they promptly got too drunk to do anything, including kissing, except lie on their beds and watch late-night Food Network.

Sometimes there were bad days with Tess. He’d sit in the living room all day waiting for her to get home, only to avoid her like the plague when she finally did. She’d pick fights over gas money or missing fruit or hospital bills. They’d both smoke in secret so that the other person wouldn’t find out, because they were both imperious and arrogant and they were worried for each other’s health, if not their own.

On days like that Danny remembers remembering Rusty’s half-drunk lips on his cheek, and briefly entertaining the fantasy of dropping all their winnings so that he could kiss Rusty the way lips like that were meant to be kissed. For obvious reasons it was a fantasy he never shared with Tess, although as it turns out she might have received it better than he could have guessed.

Danny wants to lie back on the bed and let Rusty crawl over him, and then spread his legs so Rusty can do a number of other unmentionable tasks. He’s hard at just the thought, and around anyone else in the world he might be embarrassed or at least feel impolite. But it seems natural that Rusty would cause something like this, when Rusty has been the cause of all his secret escapist fantasies for years.

But the reminder of all the years missing, coupled with the thoughts of Tess, stop Danny abruptly. He shakes himself as if he’s waking from a stupor, and forces down his half-hard dick. Rusty is still waiting expectantly, one hand drumming against his knee. Danny asks, slightly stilted by awkwardness, “Do you remember having sex with anyone?”

Rusty’s eyes widen. “Why? Did we have sex?”

“No,” Danny has to clarify, heady from the look on Rusty’s face. He knows if he reached over right now Rusty wouldn’t say no, which is powerful knowledge. Suspecting that his lifelong best friend is interested is one thing, but hearing it confirmed aloud is another entirely.

Rusty smiles. “Well, that was stupid of us. Sounds like we covered everything else.”

Finally, the realization that has been lingering at the edge of Danny’s consciousness sinks in, and spreads like ink in water, until it’s all Danny can think about. As far as Rusty is aware, this is his first time being with someone— and if he never gets his memories back, which is looking likelier every day, then this really is his first time. It shouldn’t be like this; drunk as a skunk in somebody else’s hotel room.

Danny prepares himself to do the right thing for the first time in maybe a decade, and takes a heavy breath in. “If I… if Danny Ocean were ever to have that inclination towards a man, you’d be the man.” Then, before Rusty can say anything, Danny narrows his eyes. “Now I’ve got a question for you. What the hell is Lakitu?”

The change in tone couldn’t be more harsh, and Danny watches Rusty’s face carefully as he reacts. It isn’t dramatic, and he doesn’t laugh or frown or beg; he just gives Danny the same look Danny has seen on him their whole lives. The look means ‘you and I are going to talk about this later’, and for the first time Danny wonders if he’s been missing a piece of the puzzle the entire time. Because a lot of emotions just crossed Rusty’s face, but not a single one of them was surprise.

“He’s a character in Super Mario,” Rusty says, popping a candy into his mouth. The simple gesture reassures Danny more than words possibly could. “He operates the camera. Virgil brought some games to my hospital room for when I got bored and we— oh, _fuck_ , that is sour! Motherfucker!”

Danny claps Rusty on the back and gets up to pour another round, and neither of them remember much of the night after that.

 

 

It turns out Debbie’s idea of two days is one day, and her idea of one extra man is two extra women who arrive before eight in the morning. Danny is so hungover that it feels prudent to blink a few times to check that he isn’t seeing double. Rusty looks just as flummoxed as he feels, and his hangover is definitely worse. They only woke up ten minutes ago and his eyes are still half-closed behind his sunglasses, and every couple steps his mouth twists up like he’s trying not to be sick.

Both women are clad in blue hats, as per Debbie’s text. Danny had pictured something seasonal and non-suspicious like a sunhat, but the shorter woman is wearing a Yankees cap and her accomplice is wearing a knitted beanie with two buttons. Danny does the math; one extra helper means three thousand dollars less in everyone’s pocket at the end of all this. For once they aren’t doing this job for the money, but three thousand dollars sure could buy some good celebratory champagne.

Swallowing down his wrath at Debbie, Danny crosses the room. Rusty follows, managing to keep his guts where they belong. “Have you two been checked in yet?”

The woman in the beanie steps forward and begins the response that he and Debbie had settled on, but before she can speak the other woman darts forward. “Oh shit, you look just like your picture!”

Danny glances at Rusty. “My picture?”

“Yeah, the one your sister keeps around all the time. You’re kind of hotter in the picture, no offence,” the woman continues, frenetic with more energy than could be blamed on the airplane coffee in her hand. Danny stares at it with envy. They should have stopped to make coffee before coming down to deal with whatever the fuck is happening. “So, uh, how’s the afterlife?”

“Full of surprises,” Danny mumbles. “Hey, wasn’t there supposed to only be one of you?”

“Two-for-one sale,” the other woman responds. She has a laptop bag on her shoulder so Danny can only assume that she’s their new eye in the sky, leaving her partner’s job still unknown. “Your sister said you’d be fine with it.”

There’s an unpleasant emphasis on ‘ _your sister’_ , like this woman either sleeps with Deborah every night or finds her beyond irritating. Danny raises an eyebrow, and finally decides, “As long as you know your cut.”

“We know our cut,” the hacker says with a dry smile. “That’s one of the few things we do know.”

“Yeah, Debbie wasn’t exactly generous with the details,” the shorter woman pipes up. “I mean, we don’t even know why you wanna hit this place anyway. Usually I like to know whose life we’re gonna ruin, you know.”

Rusty steps forward. “Mine.” He offers her a hand, and she shakes it in surprised silence. “Rusty Ryan. I own the Lacuna.”

“Nice place. I’m Constance.”

The other woman chimes in, “Nine Ball,” and Danny and Rusty exchange a look.

As cool as it sounds, Danny doesn’t like the alias. “I don’t know how you do it out east,” he starts, “but if you’re on my team, we use our real names.”

Nine Ball chuckles, and she nods her head in acknowledgement but _not_ agreement. “Your sister had the same reservations.”

Danny twitches, ready to fire Nine Ball and Constance before the job even begins; before he can say as much, Rusty’s hand is on his back. “I don’t use my real name,” he points out.

It’s too soon to change the job. They don’t have time to find another hacker. With this in mind, and Rusty’s palm between his shoulders, Danny forces himself to exhale. “At least Nine Ball sounds better than Bandit.”

 

 

Danny doesn’t have the literal time to waste worrying about if Nine Ball and Constance are going to mesh with the rest of the team, so Rusty takes that particular task underway as Danny goes store-to-store searching for a chemical compound he swears Basher made up. When he returns to the hotel in the evening he’s tanned, thirsty, and tired, and the last thing he wants to do is icebreakers with his team.

The concierge delivers a message on behalf of Mr. Ryan instructing Danny to report to the pool right away. Danny doesn’t allow himself to get irrationally excited, but he does shower twice as fast as he normally does. He reasons with himself that any unrinsed shampoo will just wash out in the pool anyways.

When they used to fight over the necessity of pools, Rusty kept stubbornly returning to his rebuttal that having a pool enhanced the fantasy of staying in a resort, because it was something most Americans dreamed of having in their own backyards. Danny is pretty sure he said those words verbatim, especially ‘enhances the fantasy’ because Danny remembers teasing him relentlessly for it.

If he could only reach back in time, maybe Danny would send a sign to his younger self to ease up a little. ‘Someday _you’ll_ be the middle-class American man getting excited about fooling around in a hotel pool’, or something like that. It isn’t his fault that Rusty looks equally good soaked in blue chlorine as he does in a suit on dry land.

Danny uses all the time he saved in the shower (decidedly not thinking about Rusty wet and shirtless) to spend twice as long styling his wet hair, until he catches a glimpse of his own open smile in the mirror and realizes how ridiculous he’s being.

When he gets outside Danny’s anticipation stutters to a complete stop, and he’s glad he didn’t do anything like put on nice cologne. Rusty is sitting on the edge of the pool in swim trunks, calves dangling in. His eyes meet Danny’s from all the way across the water.

Unfortunately, the fantasy has been warped slightly by the presence of Linus, Basher, Constance, Nine Ball, and even Reuben who Danny swore had already boarded his flight home. Nine and Constance are lounging in the hot tub while Linus sits on the tiles next to them, still wearing a shirt for some reason. Reuben is napping on a chair in the twilight, looking remarkably like Morticia Addams— Danny doesn’t know if he’d consider that offensive or great praise. Basher is doing laps in the pool, though he stops at Danny’s approach. “Oi, look who finally decided he’d join us!”

Dismissing his dreams of defiling Rusty underwater, Danny gives Basher a half-wave and a third of a smile. Rusty is already looking at him, and his gaze doesn’t break away as Danny walks around the pool to sit beside him, nor when he shrugs off his dark red Lacuna-branded bathrobe. Only when Danny tosses the robe onto a nearby chair does Rusty turn, reaching behind him for a bottle of wine and pouring two glasses.

“I’m fairly certain that breaks the rules,” Danny squints, smiling as he thinks of a fight from decades ago. It doesn’t actually say on the list of guidelines that drinking isn’t allowed in here, but Danny suspects the investors would disapprove.

“My hotel.” Rusty hands him his glass, and smiles back. “My rules.”

Linus calls from beside the hot tub, “Hey, I thought the doctors said you weren’t supposed to drink!”

“Shut up, Linus,” Rusty shouts back. Danny is delighted to hear him sound like himself again. He clinks his glass against Danny’s and they drink their wine in peaceful quiet. Danny silently drafts an apology to twenty-five-year-old Rusty, because he thinks he finally understands the appeal of pools. “Did you get the Hungarian salt for Basher?”

Basher yells something like “Not salt, ecrasite,” but his mouth is half-full of pool water so it sounds more like ‘north, south, extradite’.

Danny replies, “No, nobody’s heard of it in a hundred years. But they suggested a substitute that might work.”

Basher disappears under the surface again, undoubtedly running hypothetical explosions in his mind. Danny sips his wine and dips his toes into the water, only to wince at the temperature. “Hot tub?”

They join Constance and Nine Ball, who obligingly slide over to make room. Nine is wearing sunglasses so it’s impossible to tell if she’s watching them or if she’s even awake, but Constance smiles; brightly at Rusty, and then politely at Danny. “Long day?”

In the less than fourteen hours he’s been awake Danny has walked at least fourteen miles in search of an ancient ammunition that he’s still unconvinced exists. But thanks to the liter of coffee, his hangover has faded to a dull roar— and the wine is helping immensely. “Wasn’t so bad.” The jacuzzi is overwhelmingly hot at first, but as he adjusts to the water he can feel himself relaxing. Rusty slides in beside him, keeping only a foot of distance. If Constance and Nine Ball find that weird, it doesn’t show on their faces. “How was yours?”

“Dope,” Constance says sagely, nodding. “We got the full tour.”

The full tour probably doesn’t refer to the penthouse suite or the fountain in the lobby. Danny peers at Nine Ball. “So you think you can do it?”

“She can do it,” Rusty interjects. “We already tested it; she took over control of our surveillance from the Starbucks down the street.”

“And she was stoned,” Constance laughs. “So imagine what my girl can do sober.”

Rusty raises an eyebrow, suggesting he hadn’t known she was high— not disapproving, just impressed. He sips his merlot, which appears to trigger the memory of his hosting duties. “Would either of you like a glass of wine?”

“Dude, you don’t have to treat us like your guests,” Constance laughs again. Danny decides he likes her. “But, yeah, sure, if you’re offering.”

Linus scrambles to his feet before Rusty can climb out of the bath, shrieking, “I’ll get it!” Danny wonders what’s lit a fire under his ass until Linus returns, holding out glasses to the women.

Nine declines, but Constance grins and accepts one; Linus even pours it for her. “I see you two bonded quick,” Danny observes, watching Linus flush and nearly spill some of his own glass into the jacuzzi. “Fast friends?”

“Linus is cool,” Constance shrugs. Linus beams like she’s just compared him to a saint, until— “Basher is cooler though. We didn’t have anybody on our team who could do that shit.”

“Basher isn’t as cool as Daphne Kluger,” says Rusty, grinning. Basher, unaware of the slight against him, keeps doing laps like he’s being timed.

“Daph’s pretty cool.” Constance drinks her wine like it’s soda, downing most of the glass in one sip. Rusty, Danny, and Linus all stare expectantly but she doesn’t flinch at all. Danny decides he likes her a lot. “She even did a cameo on my channel, which was pretty tight.”

Danny doesn’t want to ruin his newfound friendship with Constance by asking about her channel and participating in that discussion, so he drinks his wine and steals a glance at Rusty. The sun has dipped below the horizon and the dusk is starting to cool the air around them, but the water is still hot. It’s not the night he envisioned, but it’s perfect anyway.

Meanwhile, Linus breathes, “That’s so cool! Would you let… just _anyone_ be a guest star on your channel?”

 

 

In the two weeks that they get to know Nine Ball, Danny learns less than a dozen facts about her.

Her name remains elusive throughout but that might be due to no one prying; Rusty was right about his own nickname, and Danny decides it doesn’t matter if she wants to call herself Skee-Ball when her work is as good as it is.

And he means _good._  Nine Ball solves their surveillance issue on her third day, recording a perfect loop of the hallway to use the night of the heist. She suggests moving the cameras too, but she understands that no matter what, they are _not_ going to incriminate Rusty. She likes Lakitu more than Danny could have predicted, laughing aloud when she first hears it.

It’s the first time Danny and Rusty have ever heard her laugh, and the sound is bright like bells. Rusty’s eyes bulge out of his skull, and Danny is sure he looks similarly shellshocked. “Oh, that’s good,” Nine giggles, shaking her head and pulling out a phone. “I gotta text Veronica. Lakitu!”

Danny dares to ask “Who’s Veronica?” and Nine Ball fixes him with a glare just as sharp as her nails, laughter disappearing in an instant. “Sorry. Right.”

On the other side of the spectrum, Danny ends up learning more facts about Constance than he could possibly ever hope to remember. Constance is ambidextrous, and bisexual, and plausibly androgynous which would really complete the triumvirate. She’s only fluent in one language but she’s learning ASL, which means that Danny is also slowly learning ASL by trying to piece together her hand movements as she talks. And talks, and talks, and talks. She wasn’t named after Constance Wu but it’s her favourite fake fact to use as an icebreaker, and her favourite pizza in New York comes from a hole in the wall in Brooklyn, but she thinks the _best_ pizza comes from Queens.

The only person who can keep up with Constance is strangely not her partner-in-crime Nine Ball; it is in fact, Linus Caldwell. From their first night Linus and Constance are thick as thieves, and by the end of the first week Danny is genuinely worried that she might let him make a cameo on her YouTube channel.

As everyone else prepares for the heist the pair spends hours every day practicing sleight of hand on each other, until they’re about ready to face Penn and Teller. Linus’ role in the heist revolves around an art collector that he’d noticed on his first day. The mark had taken one too many mimosas at the Lacuna’s breakfast buffet, and as a result he embarked on a rant to anyone who would listen about the struggles and trials of the painting industry. Linus had been the only one who would listen, although at the time he hadn’t given it much thought. But later, when he cased the collector’s room, Linus re-evaluated his interest in fine art on the spot.

“Let me get this straight,” Danny hums, looking at the photos and articles Linus has strewn over the table in front of them. Rusty is taking notes in his green Moleskine journal, which is almost halfway full now; not that he’s let Danny read any of it. “You want to do the fiddle game. We set Constance up with whatever fake art we can find, and then when she leaves you come in to offer a higher price… Hang on, is this guy rich?”

“He doesn’t look rich,” Constance mutters. In one of Linus’ stalker photos, the guy is sitting alone by a shuttle bus stop, eating a Subway footlong.

“No, he’s not rich,” Linus stammers.

Danny doesn’t have to look over at Rusty to know they’re frowning the same way. “Why would we rob someone that isn’t rich?”

“Seems kind of cruel,” says Rusty. He’s eating trail mix that’s mostly M&Ms and dried fruit, but Danny doesn’t complain, satisfied to see Rusty eating regularly again. He’s also wearing two different shades of green, like he picked out the shirt and jacket just to piss Danny off. If he did, it’s working. Danny’s satisfaction dwindles.

“No! I don’t want to do the fiddle game.” Linus looks like he might burst. “I’m saying, we do Gambit.”

Danny blinks, and wonders exactly who allowed everyone to start coming up with new codewords on the fly. “We do which gambit?”

“No, Gambit. I wanna do a Gambit.”

Constance purses her lips. “From X-Men?”

“No, with Colin Firth...” Everyone stares at Linus, and he visibly deflates. “Never mind.”

He explains his plan and manages to avoid referencing Colin Firth any further, and by the end Danny has to admit he’s impressed. The mark for this part of their robbery is not the hotel guest himself, but the several works of art he’s transporting to a gallery nearby. Linus hasn’t been able to piece together why the gallery has made the phenomenally stupid mistake of allowing him to take the art with him on vacation, but in a week it won’t matter anyway.

“So when the power shorts out, Basher is also going to hardwire Bergara’s safe to open. Constance just needs to get in, swap the paintings, and get out— and she only has to get to the service elevator before the cameras come back on. She can take her time after that.”

Constance nods. “Lit.”

“Good plan, right?” Linus twiddles his thumbs, glancing at Danny and Rusty. Danny isn’t going to validate him for his own sake; it is a good plan, and he knows Linus knows that already. “I’m gonna be busy with the safe so I was hoping one of you could distract Bergara if you’re up for it?”

“I’m up for it,” Rusty says, a little too fast.

“Then that’ll be our alibi,” Danny decides, setting his jaw. Everyone turns to him for clarification. “Because… Rusty can’t be at the hotel while it’s robbed? He needs a solid alibi?” Only his etiquette restrains him from adding ‘obviously’ or  _'duh.'_

Constance asks, “You need one too?”

“When the police find out who owns the Lacuna, Rusty and I are going to be tied for the position of primary suspect. The two of us have probably spent more time incarcerated than either of you have been alive,” Danny tells her. Linus and Constance frown at him, then at each other, adding fuel to Danny’s theory that Linus might be a little older than he looks. “We even had overlapping stints in the clink.”

He expects to see recognition dawn over Rusty at that, but his friend just looks puzzled. Danny remembers anew that Rusty still hasn’t found the memory of all those years, and for the first time in a couple days Danny’s heart aches again. Danny wants to reach out and touch him but it doesn’t seem prudent, not with Constance and Linus right there.

“Nobody calls it the clink anymore,” Rusty tells him, and even hearing that hurts. But he must be learning, because before Danny can say ‘you did’ Rusty presses his finger to his tongue, and he flips to one of the dog-eared pages in his book. “ _Nobody calls it the clink anymore… except for you._ Daniel Ocean, my third day in the hospital.”

Danny rests his hands on his hips. “Huh.”

 

 

He catches up with Rusty afterwards, leaving Constance and Linus to their own terrifying devices. A random Lacuna staff member flags Rusty down and asks for a moment of his time to discuss some boring personal issue. Danny gives them their space, watching Rusty roll his green sleeves up over his green sleeves and listen to the employee’s problems. He’s not pretending to listen either; he’s actually rapt, nodding slowly as they tell him about something or other.

His silhouette is outlined by the daylight flooding through the windows at the end of the hall, and Danny is once more struck by the fact that he is beautiful. But he isn’t just a wasted opportunity for the world of male modelling; framed like this, he looks like the all-American blond boy next door who grew into a professional, responsible businessman.

Regret bowls Danny over. He shouldn’t have intervened. Rusty’s life may not have been perfect as a hotelier, but he would have grown into it. This has always been his dream, his whole life— he and Danny used to fight about the imaginary pool for his imaginary hotel, and Danny would put up such a fuss even though he didn’t really care at all. What he did care about was keeping Rusty a low-life, because that was necessary for keeping Rusty in _his_ life.

By the time Rusty finishes, Danny has a text half-drafted to Tess inquiring how she could have possibly dealt with being married to the most selfish person on the planet. It’s intensely self-deprecating— pitiful bordering on pathetic— and he’s glad to shove his phone deep into his pocket at Rusty’s approach. “Hey,” Danny starts, mortified to hear himself almost sound choked up.

“Hey,” Rusty grins. “That’s our guy.”

Danny swallows his regret and misery, confused. “Our guy?”

“That girl,” Rusty jerks his head back at the employee, who’s already making her way to the exit. “She’s the one that’s gonna be working the front desk the night Linus robs it.”

Danny strains his neck to look, but their guy is gone. “You told her about… You _told_ her?”

“Well, of course,” Rusty blinks. “That sort of thing can be really traumatic for a person.”

“Right,” Danny swallows, for an entirely different reason. Seeing as Rusty has a thing for hearing Danny talk about crime, it’s very possible that Danny has a thing for hearing Rusty talk about anything but crime. And also, hearing Rusty talk about crime. But before he can ask Rusty if they’ve hired any more character actors, Danny remembers the unsent text in his pocket, and shame digs its ugly heels in again. “Rusty, if you’re not up for this, you need to tell me.”

Rusty stares, running his hand through his hair. It’s growing back so fast, and none of his scars are visible enough to worry about anymore. Danny bites his lip as Rusty says, “What exactly do you doubt I’m up for?”

“This,” Danny repeats, gesturing at the walls of the hotel around them. “That.” He points at the empty space where the employee was, and Rusty doesn’t turn to look, just staring. “The… the alibis. The job. All of it. If you don’t want to do this, now is the time to say you want out.”

“I’m staying in,” Rusty says instantly, stepping forward. They’re already standing pretty close— Danny feels like a schoolboy again. “I want to do this. And I can do this.”

“The alibis? You’re okay with…” Nobody is really around, but Danny moves closer anyway. He can see Rusty’s breath hitch in his throat as his Adam’s apple bobs. “On the big night, will you be alright with distracting that collector so that we can swap out his paintings?” Rusty opens his mouth but Danny quickly adds, “And will you be okay knowing the whole night that _your_ hotel is being robbed? You won’t be able to hire actors to replace everyone, Rus. There are going to be witnesses.”

“I know,” Rusty breathes.

“And you’re fine with that?”

“You’ll be there with me, won’t you?”

That’s a rhetorical question if Danny’s ever heard one. Before he can find a reason not to, he’s reaching up to cup Rusty’s cheek in his palm. Neither of them breathe.

Until the door to Rusty’s office swings open, and then both of them are breathing again as the outside world catches up to them; namely, Linus and Constance, who are looking respectively gleeful and shellshocked. Then they trade expressions, and Linus’ jaw drops in shock as Constance beams at them.

Danny drops his hand slowly, holding the memory of Rusty’s skin in his pocket like it’s a tangible keepsake. Rusty nods to the pair before turning on his heel and almost dashing away, but they can all see the spring in his step.

“So,” Linus starts, but thinks better of it before even his second word. He changes course; “You know any good painters?”

 

 

Two days before the heist Nine Ball sits down with Danny for a private meeting, orchestrated by her. Danny feels out of his element from the second he walks in the room; weed has never been his preferred poison, and as loathe as he’d be to admit it, he doesn’t understand the ins and outs of computer sciences. That’s what Livingston is for— or what Rusty used to be for, in a pinch— and now, it’s what Nine Ball is here to do.

“I think I deserve a raise,” Nine says. She doesn’t kick her heels up on the desk or light a cigar; she doesn’t have to. The confidence in _confidence man_ is all right there in the curve of her smirk.

Danny gapes, floundering for a second before he regains his cool. “That isn’t how this business works. You know your cut from the start, and it only goes up if everyone else gets a bigger cut too. This isn’t about merit.”

“Right,” says Nine, handing him a blunt. Danny steels himself not to cough as he inhales, long and slow, and exhales. The smoke alarm in Rusty’s office makes no complaint. Danny makes the belated realization that he and Nine Ball are almost wearing the same turtleneck; his is under Giorgio Armani, but it’s still a funny coincidence. “Except none of us get a cut if we get caught.”

She beckons him to come around the desk, where Rusty’s computer displays the Lacuna’s surveillance system. Each video on the array of feeds is marked with a different time and location, but they all share the similarity of a familiar face. In one, Rusty and Danny are conspiring poolside as Basher shares his massage knowledge with the world (one mom at a time). In another, Linus and Danny drunkenly break into Rusty’s office. Danny watches himself cup Rusty’s face on camera, and nearly drops the blunt.

“Relax,” Nine tells him. “I handled it. Look;” and sure enough, with the press of a button, their digital footprints are erased. Each feed turns to a blank shot with nobody more recognizable than an occasional hotel guest passing by. On one feed, Rusty is peacefully working away in his office. She must have swiped that footage from weeks ago. “Now there’s no evidence against any of us on camera.”

Onscreen, a tiny Danny chats with a tiny concierge. Nine swipes the blunt out of the real Danny’s hand, and he turns to look at her, almost speechless with gratitude. “I think you deserve a raise.”

Nine Ball scoffs, laughing quietly. She reaches for the sticky note on the monitor with Rusty’s password, tearing it off and crumpling it up into a ball. “Tell Rusty to change his password.”

Danny laughs too as she tosses the note into a garbage bin. On the wall the clock is still ticking away, and suddenly he can’t help himself. He climbs up onto a chair to take it down and turn it off. The ticking ceases and Danny breathes a little easier. If Rusty asks, he’ll blame it on the weed.

Nine Ball doesn’t notice or care, wrapped up in her phone with wide eyes. She giggles at a message, and Danny wouldn’t usually pry personal information out of his team, but the soporific has mellowed him out. He shrugs out of his jacket, sitting down hard into the chair.

“That Constance?” Nine Ball nods. “Are the two of you…” Danny struggles not to make a tasteless reference to his sister. “You know? Together?”

Fortunately the weed seems to slow Nine Ball’s usual resistance to sharing any details about her life, and she just laughs. Danny smiles until she asks between chuckles, “Are you and Rusty together?”

Danny fidgets in his chair, hands bouncing on his knees. “No, we’re not… it’s not like that.”

Nine’s grin widens. “Oh, so he’s single?”

 

 

When they were younger Rusty had wanted to name his first hotel the Sofia. Danny privately thought (and still thinks) that the Sofia sounds like a more fitting name for a boat than a luxury resort, and he remembers encouraging Rusty to name it the Ocean Hotel. He also remembers Rusty telling him that the Ocean Hotel sounds like a skeevy motel, the kind where you have to pay extra to get fresh towels and they lock the phone to the desk.

Danny doesn’t ask Rusty why he chose the name Lacuna. He doesn’t think Rusty would remember, and even if he did, it doesn’t matter. The hotel itself doesn’t matter; there are hundreds of other Lacunas along the coast with different names and different layouts but exactly the same atmosphere.

With only one more day until the heist, Danny has stopped trying to romanticize every detail in the hotel as a missing piece of Rusty. He stops wondering about the wallpaper and the verbena soap and the name; mostly he stops wondering when he realizes that Rusty has stopped trying to remember. None of the things in the hotel are going to help him regain his old life; they’re just _things._

Even the cryptic name is only something that Rusty chose years ago. Maybe he would choose it again if given the chance, or maybe he’d take the second chance as an opportunity to bring Sofia to life. Danny stops wondering about the lost memories of Rusty’s Lacuna and about Rusty’s lacuna of lost memories, and instead he focuses on the here and now. It’s the only way he can keep control of his own mind.

Neither of them ever ask the other what they would do if Rusty remembered, although it is the question on everyone’s minds. Danny even gets a concerned text message from Lou, which is a miraculous first and a probable last. His reply is succinct; ‘ _we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it’._  He hopes that she and Debbie can see past the patronizing idiom to focus on the only significant word: _if._

 _If_ Rusty gets his memories back, Danny hopes he’ll stick around. It’s not like they were fighting before the train job, but their dynamic now is less connected and more chemical. For years Danny and Rusty have operated as two sides of the same coin; even when Tess or Isabel or anyone else was in the picture, or even when Danny was in prison. They could go years without speaking (they have), and every time they reunite it’s like not a day has passed. They could read each other like a book, and no secret was kept for long— except one.

Rusty’s condition has forced them out of their symbiotic state, but the emotional distance has made Danny more aware than ever that they are two separate people, with the capability for connecting in the way that two separate people often might. Sometimes he catches Rusty looking at him when they’re with everyone else, and it shouldn’t feel significant when he and Rusty have spent years of their life looking at each other, memorizing their own language of both words and actions.

But it does feel significant, heavier than ever before. Sometimes Rusty looks over and Danny gets the impression that he’s only checking if Danny is looking back. And then there’s the touching; Rusty pats Danny’s shoulder before sliding past him and Danny has to struggle to remember if it ever used to be this intense. Was it ever like this before?

Danny should have known that everything would boil over, as is only inevitable. He could have guessed that it would happen on the worst possible night.

 

 

Tempers are short the morning of the heist, which is standard for a new team doing their first job. For Rusty, it’s a _literal_ first job; everyone else has no solid excuse. But Danny wakes up agitated too, so instead of reminding everyone that the stakes aren’t that high, he tasks Linus with going to get breakfast.

Linus returns with Danny’s change and two bags of McDonald’s, because he’s a terrible thief and a lazy caterer. Constance and Basher have no reservations about the junk food, and Nine Ball complains about the lack of vegetarian options but she digs in too. Rusty pulls a face at the greasy biscuit sandwich Linus hands him, tone dripping with disdain. “McDonald’s?”

“What’s wrong with McDonald’s?” Linus wiggles Rusty’s breakfast at him. “I think there’s something reassuring about corporate chains! Like, you get the same experience everywhere you go. It’s as comforting as Denny’s or Kraft Singles.”

“Revolting. You’re revolting.” Rusty takes the sandwich anyway. Danny knew he would. He always does, because he likes fast food just as much as slow food; he just likes putting up a fight first.

They do one last Italian run, everyone preparing their parts at three times the speed. Danny and Rusty have the easiest jobs of all: staying far, far away from the Lacuna. Back in the day they would be right there swindling and pillaging alongside the others, but now Danny is infamous and Rusty is going to be suspect number one.

With that in mind, they work hard to create their believable alibi— and Danny is pretty sure it’s perfect. Rusty orders a manager to forward all work calls to his cell phone, using his brief stint as an actual hotelier to sound professional. Danny loops his arm through Rusty’s and quizzes the receptionist about fine dining nearby, latching onto the first restaurant she mentions.

“That sounds just perfect,” Danny simpers, regretting not playing up the Mr. Ryan bit more. A fake marriage would have really sold their alibi— amongst other benefits. “Rus, what do you think? Can you afford to take the night off?”

“I think Gwen here can handle everything,” Rusty winks at the receptionist.

Gwen giggles, ducking her head. “Actually, my shift’s over in an hour. But Katrina will be coming in, she’s great.”

“I don’t think I’ve met Katrina,” Rusty muses, lying through his teeth. Katrina’s their guy on the inside: hand-picked for her moral flexibility and talent for acting.

Gwen the receptionist calls them a taxi, because if the detective is smart then she’ll be one of the first people interviewed. Danny keeps his arm linked with Rusty until they climb inside the cab, and then they resign themselves to separate sides and seats.

Danny gives the driver the name of the restaurant Gwen mentioned, and then turns to look at Rusty. Rusty is already looking at him. A smile catches and spreads over his face, slow and triumphant.

Danny doesn’t have to ask why he’s smiling; he’s riding the same high. He didn’t realize how much he missed doing jobs with his best friend.

“Dinner first,” Rusty says, smile twitching upwards.

Danny frowns in confusion. “First?”

“Then drinks.”

“I’m worried I’m enabling your addiction.”

“To what? To stealing?”

“To drinks,” Danny laughs. He already feels drunk. The Lacuna disappears behind their car as they drive into the city, and Danny leans back against the headrest and sighs. “And then what?”

“After we make seventy grand, or after drinks?”

The cab driver is on a phone call with his wife, so hopefully he isn’t listening. “After drinks.”

Rusty shrugs. “Hey, maybe you can take me to a nice art gallery. Know any good ones in town?”

“You’re an artsy guy, huh?”

“I have taste.”

Danny grins, stretching out his sleeves. Rusty is smiling too, but Danny can’t resist correcting him. “It’s seventy _seven_ grand.”

“Pedantic.”

“Seven grand is worth being a pedant,” Danny hums. “Can I ask what comes after the art gallery?”

Now Rusty looks just like the flustered receptionist, blushing and ducking his head. Danny doesn’t think he’s going to answer at all but he just mutters under his breath, “Dinner first.”

 

 

They make it ten minutes into dinner before Rusty leans forward and asks, “Should we call them?”

Danny doesn’t even look up from his Chianti, attention pointedly _not_ on his nervously fretting partner. Rusty takes the hint and shuts up, reclining into his chair. The server stops pouring Danny’s generous glass at his nod.

Rusty fidgets with his cufflinks, and Danny waits until their waiter’s attention is occupied by another table. “Careful,” he finally says in-between sips of wine. It’s far too expensive a wine to be consumed on a stomach empty save McDonald’s, but Danny thinks it’ll help his nerves. “We need him to witness our _date,_  not hear our conversation.”

Rusty nods mutely. He would have never committed that faux pas before his injury, but Danny forgives him in an instant. It’s hard not to, when his next question is, “But don’t you wish we were there with them?”

“They have it handled,” Danny says. “The execution is only one night of it— all the planning is just as important.”

It’s kind of bullshit, and it must show on his face that he thinks it’s bullshit, because Rusty frowns slightly and presses forward. “But usually, you’re in the middle of the action, right?”

Danny leans closer to whisper, “Usually, I’m not stealing from _you_.” He pretends he leaned in to steal a piece of bruschetta, and Rusty’s nose twitches. He follows suit but even the food isn’t enough to distract him (a first).

Rusty whispers back, “I know you got a piece of the action in Vegas.” His finger is wet with olive oil, which he licks off without a second thought, indecent and shameless. That sight, paired with the memory of the Bellagio heist, is enough to whet Danny’s appetite for something other than dinner. “That must have been so exciting compared to… just being my alibi.”

“You’re my alibi too,” Danny reminds him. “Rus, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you how infamous we are, especially when we’re together. Although, they’ve never caught us together.”

“Danny,” Rusty smiles secretively, popping more bruschetta into his mouth. “We’re in public.”

“More witnesses, the better,” Danny grins back. Their server is carrying an empty bottle back to the kitchen and probably wouldn’t notice if they started making out right on the table, but Danny keeps his hands and feet to himself. They have an itinerary to stick to tonight. Dinner, drinks, distracting the collector Bergara, being interrogated by the police, and then— who knows?

“Hey, here’s an idea!” Rusty drags Danny back to the present. “When we get to the gallery, we can go undercover. I’ll say I’m a celebrity, and you can be my bodyguard.”

Something nags at Danny’s consciousness— something _obnoxious._  When he puts it together and figures out what Rusty is referencing, he nearly shouts, “We’re not doing that!”

Rusty can barely contain his laughter. “We can pick fake names, you can call me—”

“Stop.”

“Oh, wait, it’s perfect. It’ll be a new move; we can call it the Paul Simon!”

“Rusty _,_ ” Danny hisses. “Start taking this seriously.”

Apparently Rusty’s pre-heist jitters have dissipated now that they aren’t in the hotel, because he doesn’t even blink an eye at Danny. He just smiles around his fork, and says as he swallows, “My mistake, Betty. I didn’t know you had doubts in your team.”

“Only one of them.”

“Gee, that’s a shame.” Rusty grins. “It’s gonna be a pain for you to have to find a new right hand man. And a new long lost pal.”

“Please,” breathes Danny. “Please stop torturing me before our main courses even arrive.”

As if on cue, their waiter appears with a freshly opened bottle of aged Chianti. “More wine for you, sir?” he addresses Rusty first, which is good because Danny is on the verge of snapping.

“Please,” Rusty inclines his head, eyes twinkling. He’s the very picture of grace and class, and nobody could ever guess what an insufferable asshole he is underneath his handsomely fitted suit. Danny is really starting to worry that he loves him.

 

 

Because it’s a nice touch, they take the dessert with them in takeaway boxes (styrofoam, not compostable— Tess’ greatest pet peeve in the world) to the gallery. Unfortunately the security guard informs them that food and drink are not allowed inside, unless they have a bag to carry the boxes.

“No, no bags,” Danny groans, innocent as ever. “Darn. Guess we’ll just have to toss it.”

“I’m not throwing away food this expensive,” Rusty whines, doing his best impression of a frivolous debutant. He turns to Danny with wide, pleading, wholly unnecessary eyes— which is how they end up eating extravagantly overpriced cheesecake with their hands, standing outside on the street.

Rusty waits until they’ve made it through the door and over to the ‘New Additions’ section to drop the character. “You think that worked?”

“It was perfect,” Danny admits after a perfunctory glance around. The security inside seems to be more worried about people touching the sculptures than any covert conversations, but in their line of work caution is mandatory. “He’ll remember you.”

“And you?”

“Us,” Danny corrects. Rusty smiles widely, and Danny wonders if it would be too much to take his hand. He suspects Rusty wouldn’t be opposed, but they should be focusing on the job right now, not trading goofy smiles like teenagers in love. “Do you recognize anyone here?”

“Kruger sounds familiar,” Rusty answers immediately; of course, none of the ‘New Additions’ are by Kruger or even in her style. Danny knows Rusty picked up on his actual meaning though, when a minute later he reaches over to squeeze Danny’s hand. “At four o’clock.”

Standing at their four o’clock is the art collector; the very same collector who currently has a room in the Laguna. (The very same room currently being cased by Constance.) There’s a booklet in his hand for the exhibition tonight; it’s not a real booklet currently in distribution by the gallery, but it is in fact the very same booklet that Nine Ball printed out last night after researching the gallery online for only ten minutes. Funny how these things work out.

Rusty drops Danny’s hand, heading over to Bergara to strike up a conversation. Danny should take advantage of the distraction to do his part of the job, but he can’t help but eavesdrop. They start off rocky, because Rusty is— well, rusty. Danny sucks his cheek between his teeth and tries to think about a bathtub of free cash to distract himself; it doesn’t really work.

The mark keeps shooting Rusty looks of disbelief, like he can’t understand why this supermodel of a man has abandoned his staggeringly handsome boyfriend to come over and shoot the shit. Danny does not find it believable either, and he catches himself praying to gods he doesn’t believe in. This part is just extra risk and reward, brought to them by Linus Caldwell who conveniently doesn’t have to be here now.

“Well,” Bergara says, mirroring Rusty’s movements— probably unconsciously. They turn to face the same painting. “That’s certainly one interpretation… may I ask, who’s your favourite artist?”

Danny prays to Lemarc. Rusty replies, “I love Lucy Liu.”

Cringing and turning away, Danny starts planning how he’s going to explain this interaction to the police. Except then he hears laughter— when he checks over his shoulder, the collector looks charmed to pieces. Rusty is staring right at Danny with a look that clearly spells ‘ _ditch the fucking training wheels and go do your part’._

Maybe there is a god, and he’s laughing somewhere off the French coast of the Mediterranean sea; or maybe Rusty is still a natural.

Danny nods once, hardly perceptible. Then he goes to the front desk, ticket still in hand. “Uh, if I go out for a smoke, will I be allowed back in?”

The receptionist offers a distracted smile, not even bothering to glance at Danny’s ticket. “Of course, sir. I’ll remember you.”

“Okay,” Danny giggles at him, reaching up with his free hand to fuck with his hair. “Sorry, I’m just— I’m so nervous! I’ve never seen him in person before— I mean, I’ve seen interviews, but talking to him is another thing entirely.”

“... Who?”

“Who?” Danny’s eyes bulge out of his head. “Oh, um— Bergara, of course!” He peeks over his shoulder at the collector, who is still enthralled by Rusty. Danny almost feels bad for him. “My partner and I are huge fans of his work.”

The receptionist shakes his head. “I’ve never heard of him…”

“Seriously?” His head shakes again. Danny sighs, making it clear how embarrassing that is. “I mean, I guess you just work here.”

The seed is planted so Danny shuts up. Sure enough, in less than a minute the receptionist types a name into his computer and then has the decency to look ashamed. He looks over at the unassuming, terribly dressed Bergara standing beside Rusty, and then back down at the Wikipedia page that Nine Ball had hacked this morning. The portfolio on Bergara’s website also got souped up, but apparently Wikipedia is enough for the receptionist to pick up his cell phone and make a call.

Really, Bergara should be thanking them for the free publicity.

The collector excuses himself from his conversation with Rusty, awkwardly stumbling towards the bathroom. Thankfully they’re still on schedule, as a woman hurries downstairs wearing a golden name tag proclaiming her status as head curator. “Bergara is here? Where?”

“I think he just went to the bathroom,” Danny says, still the perfect picture of a starstruck fan. “Do you know if he’s here scouting for works, or are you two going to collaborate on something?”

A crazed fire ignites in the curator’s eyes, but she still manages to brush Danny off politely before asking why she wasn’t informed the second he bought a ticket. Danny excuses himself as she demands an audience with him, and _he_ manages to hide his smile. They’re perfectly on schedule.

He texts Constance giving her the go-ahead. It isn’t far to the Lacuna from here; if Bergara gets spooked by the attention and runs back to his hotel room, they’ll still be short three minutes. Constance replies with a string of emojis that Danny wishes he understood less.

Rusty is standing where Bergara left him, silhouetted against a small painting with no frame. The extent of what Danny knows about fine art wouldn’t fill a postcard, and everything that he _does_ know is heavily biased thanks to Tess’ passion for the medium. But he likes the painting; it looks like it could almost be a Picasso. Or maybe just a good reproduction.

He drums against the back of Rusty’s elbow but there’s no response; Rusty doesn’t sink into him like usual. His nerves must be shot right now and so Danny takes pity on him. “We only need to keep him occupied for three more minutes,” he mutters. “Two minutes and forty seconds, now.”

Rusty says distractedly, “Right.” He doesn’t tear his gaze away from the harsh blue lines that almost could have been sketched in pencil.

“You’re doing great,” Danny realizes he’s holding onto Rusty’s elbow, and quickly drops it. “‘Course, this is the easy part. But you’re a natural.”

Rusty doesn’t listen to a word he says. “I think I recognize this one.” He lifts his arm to indicate the art, and Danny notices that he’s trembling.

Danny wants to reassure him that they don’t have to stay in character when they’re alone, but he isn’t sure if that would really help his nerves. “I thought so too. Picasso?” he jokes, but it falls flat.

“No, it looks like…” Rusty moves closer to the wall. Any security guard would take notice of him; if not for his proximity to the art, then for how agonized the movement looks. “It looks like one of Tess’s paintings.”

“I guess,” Danny says, and then, “yeah, I guess it could…” then, almost sick to his stomach as the world around them slows, “Rusty, I don’t think I ever showed you one of Tess’s paintings.”

Rusty turns around to face him, more scared than confused. “I’ve seen them at your house. Danny, what’s going on?”

 

 

“Danny,” Linus picks up after the first ring, because an impromptu phone call in the middle of a job could only mean something bad. “What’s wrong?”

“Call it off,” Danny is aware of how strangled he sounds. The paramedics don’t pay him any mind, currently busy asking Rusty a series of questions and checking his skull for brain damage. He’s only been in two real ambulance rides before this one (Virgil and Turk going undercover as an escape route does not count) but he doesn’t remember the driving being this erratic. “Call the whole thing off.”

“What,” Linus shouts. “What happened?”

“He remembers,” Danny says, turning to face the doors so Rusty won’t see the flurry of panic and emotion threatening to bury him alive. While Danny’s heart is going two miles a minute, Rusty is simply numb. They’ve been stealing glances at each other since Danny called 911 at the gallery, but the only thoughts telegraphed from Rusty have been a continuous chorus of who-what-where-when-why.

“Shit.” Nine Ball is there too, yelling something inaudible. They don’t have the sirens on but Danny’s ears are blocked by tinnitus and his own cowardly heartbeat. “Is—is he okay? Are you?”

“We’re almost at the hospital,” Danny admits, and then lies, “he’s fine,” and then repeats “ _call it off._ ” He hangs up without letting Linus ramble anymore, and when he turns back around Rusty is staring at him. Despite the lack of physical injury, he looks hurt.

 

 

The hospital is a carbon copy of every other ER Danny has ever set foot in, and yet somehow this visit feels worse than all the rest. It isn’t the same one that Rusty stayed in when he first lost his memories, because that would make things too easy. None of the doctors or nurses here are familiar, and nobody spares Danny even the briefest of looks as they pass by him.

He supposes he should be grateful that he’s been left alone with his thoughts, and been permitted his privacy in a place where everyone is exposed. He also supposes he should also be grateful that Rusty regained his memories, because that was the entire point of this venture in the first place. Neither of them had cared about their share of the money (and if Danny thinks about it, he suspects Linus doesn’t care either), they only wanted a return to normalcy.

‘ _I want to remember. I want to know if I’ve still got it.'_

His coffee’s gone cold on the table beside him, but Danny can’t bring himself to go dump it out and spend a quarter on a new cup. His skull is pounding like a drummer crawled in through his ear and has taken up residence there, and he can’t tell if it’s a headache brought on by the caffeine or a migraine that needs to be alleviated by more caffeine. There’s a crick in the back of his knee but he can’t bring himself to get up and pace around the room, or take off his suffocating sweater, or move a single inch from where he is seated.

All Danny can think is that this isn’t how it was supposed to happen. In the movies, everything rushes back to people all at once, all their stolen memories and thoughts and identity returning in a melodramatic montage lasting less than a minute. But in real life, most people who are afflicted with amnesia don’t get a second chance. And if they do, then the opportunity to retain their memories happens slowly over the course of years.

It wasn’t like that when Rusty looked at him. It was like something from a soap opera, or a pulp novel that pushed the boundary on reality in order to stay sensational. As embarrassing as it is, there’s no doubt in Danny’s mind. He knows Rusty remembers. The sensational— the _impossible_ happened before his very eyes, as Danny watched Rusty remember a lifetime in an instant.

And yet he still can’t fight the fear that something has gone very wrong. Although he doesn’t regret a single moment spent at Rusty’s side during the recovery process last time, Danny has no desire to repeat that shit. He’d rather fake his own death again. He hears a clock ticking somewhere in the waiting room, and picks up his phone to call Rusty again.

The call, like the last twenty-six calls, goes unanswered. This time it goes straight to voicemail, suggesting that Rusty’s phone has died on a table somewhere, unbeknownst to its owner. Danny hangs up before he can leave a message and embarrass them both.

A frazzled doctor walks into the waiting room, clearly busy— this is the motivation Danny has been waiting for. Finally unglued, he shoots up out of his seat, approaching with all the tact and etiquette of a feral animal. “Can I ask— my friend is in there, Robert Russell Ry—”

“I’m sorry,” the doctor brushes him off. “A nurse will be out shortly to update you, but I have to go; Mr. Ryan isn’t my patient.”

Danny bites down on the urge to comment ‘and yet you know his name’. Now that he’s up out of his distinctly uncomfortable seat— really, could they not afford any material softer than hard, cheap plastic— he finds himself a man on a mission. Every time a doctor exits the ward or comes back from a smoke break Danny jumps on them; not literally, but it’s a close thing.

Most of them don’t even let him finish the question, which suggests that Rusty has built up some notoriety as a patient in the hour they’ve been here. None of them answer him, which seems unfair because it would be an exceptionally easy question to lie about. ‘Is Rusty going to be okay?’

“Of course, Mr. Ocean,” Danny mutters into his fresh cup of shitty coffee, hand drumming against his hip. The caffeine has carried him safely out of his headache into blissful focus, but he can already feel another bout of soreness coming on. He drains the cup and burns his tongue and swears colourfully. A young woman wearing a Lakers hoodie looks at him askance, but Danny has been pacing back and forth for at least ten minutes now so he’s used to the staring.

He goes back to mocking the doctors (privately, into his cup, because as upset as he is he obviously still respects the medical profession). “Thank you for your unfailing patience in the face of such adversity. Rusty is— oh, hey,” he switches from his sing-song whisper back to his regular, hyper-charming voice as a woman in scrubs walks by. “Hey, is there any chance you could tell me if Rusty Ryan is going to be okay? He’s my friend and I’m really worried.”

It’s more honest than he would have liked to be with a complete stranger, but desperate times call for the abandonment of dignity. The doctor doesn’t interrupt him right away, which is a good sign. “We’ll let you know,” she finally says, which isn’t a thank-you for his unfailing patience in the face of such adversity, but is more than he’s gotten from anyone else. Danny fights the sycophantic urge to grab her hand or thank her profusely, but he thinks from her look of sympathy that she might be able to see the gratitude written all over his face anyway (under the layers of complex terror and panic, that is).

He calls Rusty again, having forgotten that his phone died, and leaves a voicemail that is one second long and consists of the F-word.

Cradling his disgusting cup of twenty-five cent coffee like it’s extravagantly disgusting civet coffee, Danny flees the watchful gaze of the girl in the Lakers hoodie, ducking outside under the pretense of needing a cigarette. It’s colder than he expects and he ends up pressed to the cement wall, body covering the ‘king’ in ‘no parking — fire lane’.

Smoking doesn’t even help— Danny hadn’t dared to hope that it would fix his anxiety, but the nicotine does not even hold its usual appeal. He tries to remember the last time he’s been this worried about something, and all his memories include Rusty. Danny takes another drag, so long that he coughs for lack of air by the end of it.

“You’re Daniel Ocean,” he reminds himself. A truck drives past the ER, followed by billowing clouds of exhaust— the engine noise swallows his already quiet speech. “You’ve been to prison six times. You’re the best of the best, and whatever’s going to happen with Rusty isn’t going to… I’ve been to prison _six times_. I robbed the fucking Bellagio. We robbed—”

He goes silent, thoughts racing around his skull like Saul’s prized losing dog. Nobody is outside to listen to his crisis. Danny leans his head back against the cold concrete and then he does what any respectable man would do in his situation. He calls his ex-wife.

Tess doesn’t pick up until the third ring, right as Danny’s thumb is headed for the button to end the call. “Danny, it’s late,” she reproaches instantly. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

He smiles for the first time in an hour and a half. The good thing about staying close with Tess is that he always has at least one phone number memorized, for times of crisis when he needs to call a best friend and interrupt her night. The great thing about Tess is that she’s the best listener he knows. And as much as she might tell him off, he knows he could always tell her anything. “Someday I really hope to pick up the phone and have a conversation with you where you don’t have to ask me once if I’m okay.”

Tess laughs, short and sweet. Danny closes his eyes against the inevitable flood of affection that always accompanies that fucking laugh, but to his surprise, it just isn’t there. For the first time in his life, he doesn’t want to drop everything and go rushing back to someone who doesn’t exist anymore. He’d blame it on the pit of despair roiling in his stomach right now, but that doesn’t seem fair to either of them— or to Rusty. She asks, “So… you’re okay?”

“No,” Danny shakes his head without opening his eyes. “Rusty remembered.”

A beat passes as Tess processes this, and then: “Oh my god, Dan. Oh my _god._ ” The déjà vu is nearly too much to handle. “Is he alright? What happened?”

“I’m at the ER waiting for him now,” Danny shrugs even though she can’t see it. “They said they’ll let me know, so… they’ll let me know.”

“Oh, Danny.” He can practically envision her fidgeting with the receiver the way she always does. “What are you doing?”

“Harassing doctors,” Danny laughs, short and bitter. He accidentally ashes his cigarette into his coffee without realizing, and when he notices it’s hard not to fling the cup away as hard as he can. What a waste of twenty-five cents. “I don’t know what else to do, Tess.”

And just like that, the dam is broken and it all comes spilling out. He doesn’t actually cry but it’s a close thing as he starts to share every nervous thought bothering him with Tess. He does not mention a word about the failed heist because even at a time like this, Danny Ocean is still Danny Ocean and it’s important for him to be a professional. But he tells her everything else that he is worried about, without shying away from his feelings for Rusty. It’s terrifying to confess that to her, but the relief he feels when he gets it off his chest is well worth it.

He even tells her what he’s the most paranoid about; that Rusty will walk out of the hospital without a single memory of the last few weeks. Danny doesn’t go into detail about any of their late nights together with only scotch and sodas and Milk Duds for company. He doesn’t need to— Tess is a smart woman and she knows him well.

“Well then you can catch him up on what he missed,” she finally decides. It actually really comforts him, mostly because it is the most Tess thing she could have said in that moment. But then she asks, “What triggered the memories in the first place?”

“Actually, it was kind of... you.” Danny runs his hand through his already disheveled hair. “We were at an art gallery, and he saw a painting that looked like something you would like, and he recognized it—”

“Hang on,” Tess says. Danny winces at the familiar tone in her voice. “You were at an art gallery?”

“Yeah, we’re both men of culture.”

“Was it Rusty’s idea or yours?”

“I guess you could say we came up with it together.”

“Oh, I bet you came up with it together,” Tess seethes. “I thought you were going to help him keep his nose clean, Danny!”

Danny grins. “Turns out he likes it dirty.”

“Oh my god,” Tess gripes. “I should have known. I _did_ know, actually— this is just like that documentary I saw where they got the guy to confess to a murder he didn’t even remember! _I_ _told you_ _so_ , Danny. God, I should have known you two would just get wrapped up in it all over again. You should count yourself lucky Isabel isn’t listening.”

“You’re not gonna tell her?”

Her sigh is that of a long-suffering best friend and unwilling accomplice. “Let’s see how Rusty’s doing first.”

“Thanks, Tess.” Danny folds his arms around his frame, breathing easier already. “Really. Thank you. I think I’d go crazy without you.”

“No worries,” Tess says instead of ‘ _yes, because clearly right now you are the poster child for mental health and stability’,_  which is another small mercy. “There’s nothing you can do but wait, Danny.”

And he follows her advice, reassuring himself with the words long after the phone call is over. Danny returns to the aptly named waiting room. He opts out of another shitty coffee and returns to his uncomfortable seat empty-handed, but not as uncomfortable before. He sits, and he waits. He waits, and waits, and waits.

Until finally someone calls his name.

 

 

The doctor leads him past the waiting room without any further delay. Danny catches sight of his own haggard reflection in a glass door and winces; he could have taken the extra time to go make himself look nice, or polish up his suit, or get them espresso from the nearest coffee shop. Any of those would have been less pathetic options than waiting but Danny knows in his marrow that he wouldn’t have been able to leave Rusty here alone.

Rusty’s room is smaller than the last one, plastered with signs reminding everyone to wash their hands and to ask about the side effects of unpronounceable prescriptions. Rusty has been placed on a clinical bed too high off the ground like he’s at the veterinarian’s. He’s still wearing his suit although the jacket has been discarded onto a hook, and he nods to every word the doctor says. He seems okay— more tired than usual, but as beautiful as ever.

At the sound of the door closing Rusty looks over. His eyes pin Danny to the door; he couldn’t step into the room even if he wanted to. The doctor glances over too, and then continues giving Rusty instructions on what he should do in the coming days; neither Rusty nor Danny listens. Finally she finishes, officially discharging Rusty and bustling out of the room to attend to other patients, leaving the pair of them alone.

This time, Rusty speaks first. “Danny.”

“Hey, Rusty,” he answers in kind. Both of them remember to breathe. “You remember—”

“Everything,” Rusty interrupts, the same smooth way he’s interrupted Danny for years. He slides off the bed, standing on uneven footing at first. “I remember everything.”

“Good.” The force of it surprises them both but Danny offers no apology. Relief courses through him in waves, making his knees feel just as weak as Rusty’s. “So you remember the job—”

“I remember.” Rusty reaches for his jacket, shaking out the sleeves as he pulls it on. “You didn’t have to call everything off on my account.”

“Of course I did.”

“I guess you did,” Rusty smiles at him in a sort of funny way. Danny doesn’t smile back, not just yet; he still hasn’t moved away from the door. “Shame, though. I always hated that hotel.”

“Guess some things never change,” Danny sighs, but he’s still torn by disbelief. It seems impossible that Rusty is standing before him unchanged. “So that means you remember Benedict.”

“Sure, I remember Terry.” Rusty beams. “And his very generous care package.”

“Do you remember, uh…” Danny scrambles to think of someone they haven’t seen in years. “Topher?”

“Are you seriously asking me that? I can’t believe _you_ remember Topher.”

“Do you remember T—”

“Are you _seriously_ asking me if I remember Toulour? I _wish_ I didn’t remember Toulour.” Rusty squints at him and takes a step forward. “Danny, it’s me. I remember everyone, I promise. Toulour, Isabel, Tess, _you_.”

Danny nods, exhaling out a heavy breath. “And you’re all—”

“I’m alright,” Rusty says, and that’s all the warning he gives before he closes the distance between them. They really aren’t that far apart at all, they never have been; but they’ve never been this close either. Their noses gently bump together as Rusty kisses him. The kiss has been years in the making, their whole lives, but Danny is still shocked and happy. So, so happy.

He pushes forward from the door to kiss back, and if his knees were weak before it’s nothing compared to now. One hand rests on the gap above his hips and the other one cradles the back of his skull. Rusty weaves his fingers through Danny’s hair, leaving him powerless to do anything but pull Rusty closer and lean into his mouth.

Danny is still smiling when Rusty pulls away to look at him, breathing harder than one kiss should probably warrant. But Danny understands perfectly— he goes to say something about how that was the best kiss of his life, but he can see written all over Rusty’s face that he already knows. Instead Danny chokes out, “Don’t ever leave again.”

“Well, then make sure I never get thrown in front of a train again,” Rusty teases, fingers still brushing over his head. Danny can’t believe he spent so long thinking this was his secret and his alone. He and Rusty have shared everything since the day they met; of course they’re going to share this too. “But… I’m not planning on it.”

“And stay away from trains,” Danny adds, kissing Rusty again because he’s there. He doesn’t pull back this time, whispering his next confession right into Rusty’s open mouth. “I need you.”

“I know,” Rusty nods, and then neither of them says anything with words at all. Rusty pushes him back against the door; Danny is sure their silhouettes make a pretty picture against all the ‘wash your hands’ signs. Is it possible to get banned from a hospital? He’s willing to give it their best shot.

“Rusty, I,” Danny starts but the words are swallowed between them. Rusty licks his lips and moves away just enough for them to look at each other, and Danny stops to take in the view, almost forgetting what he has to say. “The—” Rusty’s jacket is in disarray like he just got jumped. His lip is swollen. Danny may have bitten it. “The way that I need you is…”

Rusty’s smile is slow and wide and as it ignites, it wipes all the words from Danny’s vocabulary. “I know,” he says, soft and patient. “Me too.”

Danny watches him, overwhelmed. “How long have you known?”

“Since you walked into my life.”

 

 

The taxi cab that takes them back to the hotel is much quieter than their last trip, but the tension is still there. Simmering, now— Danny is glad for it, because if he had to go much longer living in doubt he would have blown a gasket. He’s also glad to know that Rusty returns his affections, even if he still has his doubts about that.

Not because he doesn’t trust Rusty or anything. It just seems unbelievable that the man sitting beside him in the dingy, uncomfortable seat is _his,_  even though they’ve belonged to each other for their entire lives. He can hardly believe that he gets his best friend back, let alone that Rusty cares about him the same way.

Rusty turns, face lit in intervals by passing streetlamps. His neck is pale in the dark cab, and Danny catches himself staring one second after Rusty catches him. “What are you thinking?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Danny murmurs back. He wants to reach over and grab Rusty’s hand, like they’re at the start of their lives and not the middle.

“I was thinking about the past couple weeks,” Rusty mutters, even though there’s no need to whisper, not really. He takes Danny’s hand in his, tracing things against his palm. His fingertip brushes over the knuckle on Danny’s ring finger, and they both look up at the same time. “Some pretty embarrassing stuff on my part.”

“What, all the times you hugged Linus?” Danny squeezes their hands together. “I forgive you.”

“No, although that isn’t my finest moment.” Rusty’s grin falters for just a second. “I was… I’ve been feeling nervous around you. Because you’re so perfect.”

Danny, the divorced criminal who’s nearly fifty without any kids or degrees, blinks at Rusty without comprehension.

“You are,” Rusty smiles again, a little sour around the edges. “You’re hot, and you always know what you’re doing— or at least you figure it out along the way. And it made me think I was inadequate, since I didn’t have any of my memories and I didn’t remember how to be the person who knew you so well. Everything about our lives seemed so perfect.”

Their hands twist together tightly. Rusty continues. “But, now that I remember how we used to be… I’m glad that things have changed. I just wish that I hadn’t embarrassed myself so much the last few weeks, and that I’d known—” He sucks in a shallow breath. “It doesn’t matter now anyway. Danny, thank you for all your help. I’m really grateful you stuck around.”

And what can Danny do except kiss him at that? The streetlamps pass by slower and slower until Danny stops paying attention to light or to sound or any sensation other than touch. Rusty stops looking so morose but he doesn’t stop smiling like the cat that got the cream, or like a thief that pulled off a con. He pushes forward into Danny’s arms as they brace against the seat, both attuned to the road beneath the tires. The night and city rush by and neither of them spares a second to look away— until a particularly cruel yellow light brings the cab to a stop.

Rusty resurfaces, mouth red and eyes bright, both unapologetic. The cabbie hasn’t said a word about their backseat shenanigans but Danny can’t imagine he’s too happy, even in a liberal city like this. They settle back into their respective seats, pulses racing long before traffic starts to move again.

Rusty reaches over to squeeze Danny’s thigh firmly and Danny has never been harder in his whole life. He tips the cab driver five hundred percent.

They get out at the Lacuna, still tripping into each other and still holding hands. Nothing short of a natural disaster could separate them— unfortunately as the pair starts to regain their bearings, they become aware that the Lacuna has entered disaster mode. Police vans are parked outside the loading area, lights flashing but sirens off. The lobby is full of stragglers; some look scared but most are just wide-eyed and curious.

Danny and Rusty join the latter group, dropping their hands and filtering into the crowd easily. Danny approaches a couple that doesn’t look too put off by the emergency response team and asks what happened, but they know as little as he does. Meanwhile, Rusty marches right up to a cop, never having been one to shy away from danger. His question is not answered immediately; first the officer eyes him up and down suspiciously. “Sir, you need to stand back—”

“I’m the owner of the hotel,” Rusty spits at him— not literally, but his tone leaves no room for debate. Danny is pretty sure he shouldn’t find that hot.

“You’re the owner?”

“That’s right. What the hell happened?”

“Well, sir. Your hotel has just been robbed.”

 

 

John Frazier hasn’t aged a day since Danny saw him last. The six years of absence have only contributed a new tan and a haircut, like he knew he’d be seeing his least favourite fraudulent criminals today. He leaves them waiting in the interrogation room, but Danny and Rusty know better than to chat on camera.

After three minutes John caves, and enters the room with a three-ring binder under his arm. He looks as happy as ever to see Daniel Ocean, which is to say, he’s grimacing and there’s a vein threatening to secede from the rest of his forehead. Danny feels better already. “John! Great to see you.”

The insurance investigator slides into the chair across from them. “Hello, Danny,” he says glumly, not returning the sentiment. “And I suppose that makes you Rusty?”

“That’s right,” Rusty says, offering John a hand. John stares at it like he’s holding a gun. “So, does that mean we haven’t met before? Because you don’t look familiar, but some of the memories are still a little foggy…”

“I bet,” John opens the binder instead of shaking Rusty’s hand, flipping through it. Printed photos of surveillance footage are between the laminated pages; Danny sends a quick prayer to Nine Ball. “What an eventful few weeks it’s been for you, Rusty. According to your medical record, you only got your memories back last night— correct?”

Rusty nods, somber. “Eventful sure is one word for it.”

“And I have noted that it doesn’t say anywhere on here exactly _how_ you got all your memories back?”

“Science is mysterious,” Rusty grins.

“Right. I’ll just ask. What made you remember?”

“It was a song.” Danny smacks Rusty under the table but he just laughs, and doesn’t relent. “A really, really good song. Also Danny took me out on the best date of my life, so that might have contributed.”

“Oh,” John stops, shell-shocked. He flips through the binder distractedly and Danny has to smile— he doesn’t think Frazier has anything in his massive casefile about gay realizations. “So the two of you are, um,” he stutters to a stop again.

Danny quirks an eyebrow. “Is that pertinent? And here I told Rusty you were a professional.”

“ _Best in the biz,_ ” Rusty parrots back. If they said that, it certainly wasn’t in reference to Frazier. “And I said, then that’s the insurance carrier I want. The best in the biz.”

Danny’s grin widens. “You are, aren’t you? Debbie said she had a very positive experience working with you, John. Although it would be nice if you called every once in a while.”

“I—”

“Oh, he knows Debbie?”

“Remind me to catch you up sometime, Rus.”

“Enough,” John squawks. “The suddenness of this relationship does make me think it would be a fucking _spectacular_ way to fake an alibi for the robbery. Any thoughts on that?”

“Oh, that would have been good,” Rusty sags in his seat. “Except we weren’t the ones who robbed the Lacuna.”

“But maybe we would have, if we’d thought of something like that.”

Rusty hums thoughtfully, and then waves his hand. “Nah. I’ve turned over a new leaf. And besides, there are better benefits to being with Danny than sixty six thousand dollars.”

“Seventy seven,” John corrects, squinting.

“Whatever.” Rusty waves a hand. “You’re going to get it back for me anyway, aren’t you, John?”

John’s gaze narrows until his eyes are barely open. “Or, Danny could just give it to you right now. Seeing as he is clearly the one who stole it.”

“That’s true, Danny. You could just give it to me right now,” Rusty grins.

“Wow, in front of John? I didn’t think you were the exhibitionist type.” Danny grins back, just as bright. “Oh, wait, except we weren’t the ones who robbed the Lacuna.”

“I’m getting tired of this,” John warns them. “Look, by all accounts you two are the most obvious suspects. The only reason I’m not arresting you both right now is—”

“Because you’re not a cop,” Rusty chimes in.

“Because of our history.” Danny bats his eyes.

“ _Because_ your alibis are rock solid,” John practically shouts over them. Rusty doesn’t go for the obvious entendre, but the glint in his eyes says it all. “There’s a witness for every single part of your night; you even kept the fucking receipts from your cabs.”

“Well, to expense them,” Rusty shrugs. Danny snorts at the thought of bringing taxi receipts to get expensed from Linus.

“And every single doctor at the hospital said they remembered you, Danny. Every _single_ one. That was overkill.”

“I was worried.”

Rusty tilts his head, glancing over in Danny’s direction. “That _was_ overkill,” he chides gently.

“I was worried,” Danny repeats, turning to face his partner and ignoring John entirely. “I’m still worried. We’re going back sometime this week so they can do a full check-up.”

To his surprise, Rusty doesn’t protest. He reaches over to take Danny’s hand in his, and it’s instantly comforting. “I’m okay.”

“I know,” Danny sighs. “I’m just… you know.”

“I know,” Rusty nods.

“I’m still here,” John reminds them, sounding more irritated than before. “Hi. Remember me? The guy investigating your hotel for insurance fraud?”

“We remember,” Rusty says. Danny rubs his thumb over his knuckles. Neither of them look over. “Seems to me you’re wasting a lot of time investigating people with rock solid alibis, instead of people who could have feasibly robbed me.” Danny snorts again.

“Fine,” John says, and that’s shocking enough that they both look over. John looks exhausted, like the last six years have just caught up to him. “ _Fine._  Can you think of any enemies you have who might want to steal from the Lacuna?”

Rusty scrunches up his face thoughtfully, but finally he decides, “Nope. I’m a pretty likable guy.”

“He is,” Danny squeezes Rusty’s hand again. “You two should get to know each other, you might actually get along. Rusty’s a stickler for details too.”

“We could go on a triple date,” Rusty snaps his fingers. “Me and Danny, Debbie and Lou, and you and your binder.”

“Right,” John says, red in the face. He gets to his feet, slamming said binder shut. “If anything changes, I’ll be in touch. It was horrible to meet you, Rusty. And Danny… some days, I wish you’d just stayed dead.”

Danny genuinely laughs. “You know, I get that a _lot_.”

John storms out; it’s the most fun Danny’s ever had during an interrogation, and it’s also the weirdest foreplay he’s ever had. Their hands are still firmly held together as they get up and exit, making their way straight to the penthouse. They don’t say another word until they’re inside, when Rusty drops his hand only so that he can take his jacket off.

Danny hangs it up for him, and questions, “Best date of your life?”

“Well, not counting two bottles of cab sauv and that Oprah marathon,” Rusty grins. He helps Danny out of his jacket, and then they stand a foot apart, eyeing each other in anticipation. Rusty cuts to the chase: “So. How’d you do it?”

Danny blinks. “I thought _you_ did it?”

 

 

It turns out that they had both been telling Frazier (mostly) the truth, as the mastermind behind the Lacuna robbery is none other than Linus Caldwell. He and the gang of other culprits pulled off the heist despite Danny’s specific instructions not to do so, but Danny can’t even be mad. It’s hard to be angry when they call Linus and he sounds so fucking gleeful, like a kid on Christmas morning. Nine Ball, Constance, and someone named Eugene ( _“who?!”_ “Basher!”) helped him pull off the entire job without Rusty or Danny; although apparently Reuben had stepped in for one part.

When Linus is done nervously bragging and apologizing, he offers Danny and Rusty their cuts of the take, which is probably just another form of apology. They refuse to take any of it, since they didn’t participate in the real heist at all— Danny thinks he finally understands how philanthropists like Terry must feel. (He still expenses the cab and dinner receipts, of course.)

Rusty decides to quit the hotel business, of course; he gives his share of the ownership to Reuben as a very belated birthday gift. Reuben tries to change the name almost instantly but all his suggestions are names like The Sinatra or The McIntyre; both he and Rusty reject the Ocean Hotel, and Danny tries hard not to feel insulted.

Danny calls Debbie and tells her about Rusty, and she is very happy— in her words, “relieved that it’s over” which is a thoroughly unflattering way to describe a new relationship. Danny tells her exactly how unflattering that is, and how he had to watch her and Lou chase each other’s tails for years and he never once complained about it.

“Yeah, but Lou and I were hooking up the whole time,” Debbie says. Danny cringes at the thought and also at the reminder that as always, his sister is cooler than him and she knows it. “Hey, speaking of hooking up, how are my girls? They made it out okay?”

Danny doesn’t understand the segue at all and he has a feeling he doesn’t want to know. “As far as I know, they’re heading down to Los Angeles for a few days and then going back east. They were great— better than great. I mean, I didn’t witness Constance on the job, but Nine— wow. They couldn’t have done it without her.”

“I know,” Debbie laughs. “That’s why I sent her.”

“I like her better than Livingston.”

“You mean Bandit?”

Danny slides his hand over his face. He’d just managed to forget about Livingston’s stupid code name. “I _refuse_ to call him that. Matter of fact, I think I just want to keep Nine Ball.”

“No way,” Debbie stops laughing. “Unless I can keep Yen.”

“You already _have_ Yen!”

A knock on the door interrupts his phone call and Danny crosses the room, peering through the peephole. Rusty is waiting in the hall, looking unhurried and handsome as usual. He’s wearing a shirt Danny’s never seen before, sleeves and pant legs both rolled up. Danny fights the urge to just hang up on Debbie, because he knows he’d never hear the end of it.

“Oh— Deb, that’s the room service I ordered,” he says as he wrenches open the door. Rusty raises a curious eyebrow. It’s been two whole days since they last kissed, both preoccupied by other, arguably more important tasks— like making sure Constance landed in LA safely, and signing over the Lacuna to Reuben. Looking at Rusty now, Danny can’t remember a single reason why. “I’ve got to go, I have to pay this guy.”

Rusty’s eyebrow inches higher but he only huffs out a laugh, moving past Danny into the room. “Sure thing,” Debbie sounds unconvinced by his flimsy excuse, but she doesn’t put up a fight. “Say hi to Rusty for me.”

Danny hangs up, putting the phone down on a counter and immediately forgetting about it. Rusty crowds up into his space before either of them even speak; it’s not that they were never this close before everything changed, but now it’s amplified. “Deb says hi,” Danny manages to get out.

“To the room service?” Rusty steps even closer. His shirt is hanging open at the top; there’s no way it’s a bespoke Henley, but it looks specially tailored. He smells like bar soap. For once, Danny doesn’t have a witty answer for him. “Tell her I said hi back.”

“I will,” Danny starts, but the words are swallowed between them. They've gone most of their lives without kissing— except for that one post-job peck on the cheek, and that doesn’t really count even though for years it was the only thing Danny thought about some nights— and now Rusty kisses him like he intends to make up for lost time.

He backs up against the counter, and as he pulls, Rusty pushes. The stacks of styrofoam coffee cups shake behind them, but Danny couldn’t care less if they mess up the whole hotel room. He’s got a pretty good in with the owner, anyway.

Rusty bites his lip as his hands curl around his waist, fingers exploring under his shirt and nails drawing thin lines over his skin. Danny feels years younger, in more ways than one; he gasps and arches his back as Rusty licks into his mouth, and Danny responds in kind. How the hell have they never done this before?

The same thought is broadcasted across Rusty’s face when he takes a second to breathe. Danny becomes rigidly aware of how loudly he gasped, and colour starts to soak into his face. This is getting embarrassing; who is he, a fifteen year old kid? There’s no way he’s really blushing and making this much noise from one kiss. There’s no conceivable way that he should be this hard already. Then again, Rusty has always been a fan of the impossible. And Rusty is a really phenomenal kisser.

“This is fast,” Rusty says, hands still holding Danny tightly like he’s worried he’s gonna fly away. “This is really— we’re moving really fast.”

“Yeah,” Danny says, not taking his eyes off of Rusty’s mouth. He realizes his own hands are just above Rusty’s ass, and he has to physically strain not to reach down. “Yeah.”

“I mean,” Rusty digs his nails in gently, raking them back and forth as he scratches Danny’s skin. “Two weeks ago I was in your bed basically begging you to have sex, and you wouldn’t budge. What changed?”

Danny winces. “It would have been like your first time,” he mutters. “Didn’t feel right.”

“Huh.” Rusty muses on that for a moment. “And how about this?”

“This feels pretty good,” says Danny. It is the understatement of the century. Just in case Rusty is still having doubts, he adds as a comfort, “Fast.”

“Pretty fast,” Rusty agrees. His grip loosens but he’s still there, where Danny’s shirt is rucked up around his waist. He traces some word with his finger; Danny shivers. “I can wait.”

“Me too.”

Rusty examines him, holding him there with only two gentle hands and his searching, scorching eyes. This really isn’t anything like their kiss after the crooked poker game when they were in their twenties at all. Danny couldn’t escape even if he wanted to; it isn’t Rusty’s perfect body that’s doing the trick here. It’s that it’s _Rusty_ pinning him to the counter. Rusty, his best friend. His right hand man. His partner.

His partner swallows, palms on Danny’s skin under his shirt. “I don’t wanna wait.”

“Me neither,” Danny says, sliding his hands down to haul Rusty in by his ass. They kiss again and they don’t talk for the rest of the hour— or not aloud, at least. Their bodies pick up their usual conversation, doing all the talking for them.

 

 

When they’re finished (twice, in Rusty’s case (science is mysterious)) there’s no question of either of them leaving the bedroom, not looking like this. Danny just knows he’d run into the old concierge in the hallway— or even worse, Reuben.

Thankfully neither of them has the urge to leave the bedroom at all. Danny showers first, and when he returns Rusty is shamelessly lounging on his bed in his robe, flicking through cable channels. It feels just like a hundred other nights they’ve spent together in a hundred other hotels— the only thing missing is a bottle of wine and a plan for a job.

Some things are different, of course. Rusty is still flushed all over, glowing and sweaty and smiling wider than Danny has ever seen him smile. Danny towels his hair dry before climbing into bed beside Rusty, which is par for the course, but he doesn’t bother to get dressed in anything other than the towel.

Rusty turns to give him an appreciative look which is also not new, but the kiss that follows is a recent development and nearly catches Danny off-guard. They kiss until Danny is suspecting that he’s going to need to take another shower tonight, but before it comes to a head Rusty pulls back. He’s still smiling, almost in disbelief. Danny doesn’t think he’s ever seen Rusty smile so much.

Then he realizes he’s grinning the same way, and before he can feel embarrassed Rusty kisses his cheek softly. “We should have done this a long, long time ago.”

“It’s worth the wait,” Danny tells him honestly. He lifts his hand to Rusty’s hair, brushing it away from where it sticks to his forehead. “What now?”

He only means _are you gonna fuck me again_ or _are you gonna shower_ , but Rusty doesn’t reply immediately, making the question sound much more pressing than it is. For a moment Danny is spiralling in panic, and it must show on his face— or Rusty is just a telepath, which has always been a long-standing theory.

“I was thinking maybe some wine,” Rusty says. His arm settles around Danny’s shoulders and it feels like the most natural thing in the world. Danny sinks into it, sighing quietly. “Maybe we can plan our next job.”

On screen, a contestant is chopping up a herb to add to their stuffed pasta. The clock is ticking down but the chefs seem to be handling the pressure with grace, suggesting either that the game show is lying about the time constraint or that its contestants are true professionals.

If Rusty wants wine, he’s going to have to get up and get it himself; now that Danny’s lying down, he has no intention of moving for the next ten to fourteen hours. Maybe they can order real room service— they’ll probably get a discount.

“Hey, you know what,” Rusty says suddenly. “Maybe we can pay a visit to Terry’s island hotel.”

Danny catches his meaning. Despite his body’s plea to remain sedentary, he sits up. His brain is already whirring— they’d need at least six people. Maybe seven. “That sounds nice, but the invitation said I wasn’t invited.”

“That’s never stopped you before.” Rusty smiles, and they both break into laughter.


End file.
